Shinobi Odyssey
by huntsvilletiger
Summary: Team Kakashi and Team 8 left Konoha to locate Sasuke. What they find instead sends two of their number on an adventure like no other with the fates of two worlds hanging in the balance. Naruto X Stargate SG1 crossover. NaruHina, KakaRin. Others TBA.
1. Chapter 1: Encounters

**Shinobi Odyssey**

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**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Naruto**_** or **_**Stargate SG-1**_

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"Normal speech." 

"_Speaking in a foreign language."_

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**  
**

**Chapter 1: Encounters**

**Naruto's World: The Land of Fire, Seventy-Five Kilometers Outside of Konoha  
**

The group of eight Konoha shinobi stopped on the rooftop to listen to Kakashi explain the plan for locating Sasuke.

"We'll start by searching everywhere in a five kilometer radius using this roof as our center point. If we don't come up with anything, we'll relocate, search another five kilometer area, and, well, repeat that until we find our targets," Kakashi said.

"Five kilometers? But our wireless equipment won't work if we split up that far," Sakura yelled. "We'd be in danger if something happened and we were alone! We should go in teams of two at the very least. That way if we encounter any enem.."

"Relax, Sakura," Yamato interrupted the pink-haired teen's outburst.

A puff of smoke erupted around Kakashi. When the smoke cleared, Pakkun and the rest of Kakashi's nin-dogs where revealed.

'Your voices combined with our ears will work much better than those wireless headsets, and our noses will detect danger well enough in advance to get you plenty of backup," Pakkun said.

"Here's how our patrols will work," Kakashi continued with the explanation. "Each person will have two of my ninja hounds as bodyguards."

'Two? Wait..but then," sputtered Sakura as she quickly grasped that the numbers didn't work out. Kakashi had eight dogs and there were eight ninjas on the mission.

Kakashi just smirked under his mask, then said in a voice that left it unclear if he was speaking to his hounds or Sakura, "Be nice to them, okay?"

"Hi ya, Sakura-chan."

Sakura was startled when she saw it was one of Kakashi's wilder looking hounds that had spoken. Her surprise quickly turned to annoyance as one of the other hounds walked up and said, "Man, why do you always have to pick the noisy girls?"

"I'll go with Shino," another hound called out as two of them walked up to the quiet teen.

Two of the other dogs slowly circled Sai.

"Hello," Sai said only to be answered with a growl from one of the dogs and a suspicious look from the other.

"Hey," Naruto said with a hint of agitation. "What about me?"

"Being a jinchuuriki, they'll be targeting you. Since Akatsuki may attack you first, you'll team with Yamato for backup and Hinata for her scouting abilities," Kakashi answered.

"And Bull, since he's loud," added Pakkun nodding toward the large bulldog as he jumped onto Kakashi's shoulder.

Naruto flinched slightly, partly because of the loud woof Bull let out in response to Pakkun's comment, but mostly because Kakashi mentioned him being a jinchuuriki. Tsunade made him tell Team 8 about the Kyuubi before they left Konoha, but after years of keeping the secret from his friends it felt strange to be talking about it in front of them.

However, Naruto relaxed noticeably when a quiet voice said, "L-let's do our best, Naruto-kun."

Naruto turned to see Hinata who was pressing her fingers together nervously under her rain cloak and blushing. His eyes lit up with a smile. "Right!"

"Kiba has Akamaru, so he doesn't need any of my hounds, and I'll just take along Pakkun," Kakashi continued speaking to the group. "All right guys, remember that trailing Sasuke's scent takes priority, Akatsuki comes second. And regardless of which target you find, your mission is only to determine their location and report back here immediately."

The group scattered at Kakashi's signal to begin the search.

* * *

"Having a problem, Hinata?" Yamato asked when he noticed the young Hyuuga girl limping slightly. 

It was just starting to rain again and the three ninjas and one ninja hound were walking down a country road bordered by power lines on one side.

"S-sorry, Yamato-sensei, I think my new sandals are starting to cause blisters on my feet. I guess they aren't broken in yet," Hinata answered.

Yamato responded, "Don't worry about it, Hinata. There's an old abandoned monastery right before we get to the next town where we can stop. Besides, it's almost time for Naruto to start bugging me about a ramen break."

"Actually, I was going to wait about ten more minutes before I started whining," Naruto played along.

Hinata smiled at Yamato and Naruto's attempt at humor, but she noticed Naruto looking at her and started blushing.

"Sorry if I was staring, Hinata, but you have a really pretty smile. You should show it off more often," Naruto said with a sheepish grin as he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, not exactly sure why he felt embarrassed.

"T-t-th-thank y-you, N-naru-naruto-kun," Hinata managed to stammer out as the blush spread to her entire face.

'Hmm, I thought Sakura said she had almost quit stuttering. I guess I misheard her. Hinata still gets all red in the face like she use to, too,' Naruto thought. 'It's kind of cute, though.'

The normally stoic Yamato fought back a grin of his own as he joined the club of people who figured out how Hinata felt about Naruto before Naruto. 'I wonder if Kakashi-sempai was trying to play matchmaker,' the older shinobi thought with a chuckle.

A few minutes later Yamato lead the group down an overgrown path that veered off the main road. After a couple of minutes of walking they saw a large stone building with a red tile roof.

"Why'd they abandon this place?" Naruto asked as they reached the front doors of the monastery. The grounds needed some serious attention from a gardener, but there didn't appear to be anything wrong with the building itself. Rather than answering Naruto's question, Yamato simply opened one of the large oak doors.

"Ah," Naruto said. While the structure looked intact from the front, they could now see through the open door that the back two-thirds of the building had burned and collapsed. "I guess the monks decided it was easier to build a new monastery somewhere else, huh?"

"Is it safe to be in here, Yamato-sensei?" Hinata asked.

"The roof over the front of the building is still sound so it should be okay," the older ninja replied. "Naruto, why don't you start lunch while Hinata takes care of her feet. I'm going to take Bull and make a quick sweep of the area."

"Sure thing," Naruto replied as Yamato and Bull left.

Hinata looked over at Naruto as he dug around in his pack looking for what he needed to fix lunch, namely instant ramen, a pot, and his camping stove. She had just taken her sandals off and gotten some medical cream out of her first aid kit to put on the raw spots her sandals were rubbing on her feet when she realized Yamato was leaving. 'I'm finally alone with Naruto-kun. Okay, I can do this. I just need to take a deep breath, relax, and then speak.'

"N-n-na-nar-uto-k-kun," Hinata squeaked out with even more of a stutter than usual.

"You okay, Hinata," Naruto asked.

Hinata just nodded, before trying to continue, "N-naruto-kun, I…"

"Oh, do you need me to help you with your feet?" Naruto interrupted when he saw the open first aid kit on the floor and the jar of medical crème in Hinata's hand.

"Umm…"

"No problem, Hinata," Naruto said as he grabbed the jar out of her hand and sat down in front of her. He propped Hinata's left foot up on his leg before he opened the jar.

"Cool, this is that same medicine you gave me at the Chuunin Exams, right? That stuff worked great on me, so it ought to fix you right up," Naruto said as he started to gently rub the crème into the pale skin of her foot.

'Naruto-kun…touching…me,' was the only thought Hinata could manage as she secretly reveled in the feeling of her crush's strong hands massaging her foot.

Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would leap out of her chest. 'I will not faint. I will not faint. I will not faint,' Hinata willed herself to remain conscious. Naruto, completely oblivious to the effect he was having on the shy girl, continued to rub her foot while telling some story about 'Ero-sennin' and feet that she only caught bits and pieces of.

By the time Naruto started working on her right foot, Hinata had regained enough of her composure to try to speak again.

"N-naruto-kun, I have something I want to ask you," Hinata managed to say in a loud (for Hinata) voice.

"Huh? Sure thing," Naruto replied with a warm smile that made Hinata's stomach do back flips. "Ask away."

"Naruto-kun, wou…"

BOOM! The sound of a loud explosion rang out, followed by what sounded like fighting and people yelling in the distance.

"NARUTO! HINATA! GET OUT HERE!" Yamato shouted from outside.

The two teenaged shinobi scrambled to get their gear together and ran out into the rain to where Yamato and Bull were standing on the crest of a hill overlooking the small town in the valley below. They could see smoke rising from several fires within the town's walls and panicked people running about. Groups of strangely dressed men carrying staffs were working their way through the streets, occasionally entering a home, only to emerge moments later shoving the home's occupants out into the street and toward the town square.

"Who the hell are those guys?" Naruto asked.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out," Yamato answered.

* * *

After Yamato sent Bull to fetch Kakashi and the others, the three-person team easily slipped unnoticed over the stonewall that surrounded the town and the ancient castle located on an adjacent hill. They then began to work their way through the now deserted streets toward the center of the town where the invaders had gathered all the townspeople. 

Along the way, they came across the bodies of a small number of townspeople who had tried to fight off the attackers with whatever makeshift weapons they could get their hands on. Yamato motioned Naruto and Hinata over to the body of an older man that still gripped a pitchfork in one hand.

"Raiton jutsu?" Naruto whispered when he saw the still smoldering circular burn mark on the dead man's chest.

"I'm not sure. It looks similar, but I've never seen a jutsu produce a wound exactly like this before," Yamato answered with a frown on his face. "Hinata?"

"There is no residual chakra signature, Yamato-sensei," Hinata answered as she examined the wound with her Byakugan activated. "Whatever killed this man wasn't a chakra based jutsu."

"Can you see any of the attackers?"

"Yes, I can just make out two of them at the edge of the square. They don't seem to have developed chakra systems, but there is something odd about their bodies. We're too far away for me to make it out clearly, though," Hinata answered before deactivating her Byakugan to conserve chakra.

"Well, these guys don't exactly act or move like shinobi, so that's not a big surprise," Naruto noted. "Could those staffs they all carry be some kind of weapon that did this? They sure don't look like a spear or any kind of pole weapon I've ever seen."

"Possibly. I don't like this situation, so stay on your toes," Yamato said before he motioned for them to move out.

* * *

Five of the Jaffa leveled their staff weapons at the mayor and four other town officials who were lined up on their knees in front of them. 

Kol'na, the Jaffa leading the raid, stepped forward and shouted to the cowering villagers, _"This is what happens to those who defy the will of Lord…"_

"HEY, DICKLESS! IT'S KIND OF RUDE TO COME INTO SOMEONE'S HOME AND START BEATING THEM UP. IF I DIDN'T KNOW ANY BETTER, I'D THINK YOU WERE TRYING TO COMPENSATE FOR SOMETHING!" a loud, defiant voice interrupted.

Kol'na turned and saw a teenage boy dressed in orange and black cloths standing with his arms crossed on the roof of one of the shops that bordered the square. The Jaffa ground his teeth. He couldn't understand what the boy was saying, but somehow he could just tell he was being insulted. Kol'na blasted him with his staff weapon, but was surprised when the teen vanished in a puff of smoke instead of dropping dead.

"YOU MISSED!" two hundred ninety-nine identical voices yelled out in unison as the rest of Naruto's shadow clones suddenly revealed themselves.

"_Shit! Open fire!"_ Kol'na shouted in alarm to the rest of the Jaffa as an orange tidal wave of shadow clones charged into the square.

* * *

This is bad,' Yamato thought to himself as he covered a group of fleeing civilians. Naruto's initial attack had done it's job by distracting their opponents long enough for him and Hinata to get the civilians out of the square, but the scattered armor-wearing warriors had quickly reformed into smaller squads and gone on the offensive. Those squads were now trying to fight their way past the three shinobi to the civilians. They'd suffered heavy losses at the hands of Yamato, Naruto, and Hinata, but they had quickly figured out not to engage the three shinobi in close combat and didn't show any signs of giving up. 

Yamato was beginning to wonder if he should have waited for backup before trying to rescue the townspeople. He was especially concerned about how well the two teenage close-range specialists under his command, Hinata in particular, were faring against the long-range weapons of their remaining opponents. Every time Yamato had caught a glimpse of her, the young Hyuuga heiress had been using either her clan's Kaiten or her own Shugohakke to shield herself and the civilians from the blasts of energy fired by the warriors' staff weapons. Chakra depletion wasn't much of an issue for Naruto, but Hinata had to be running low by now.

The tactical situation wasn't helping matters. The necessity of protecting the fleeing townspeople was severely limiting their mobility. Instead of using their superior stealth, speed, and agility to make hit-and-run attacks on the enemy from the rooftops like Yamato would have preferred, the three shinobi were largely forced to stay in the open at ground level so they could shield the civilians from the weapons fire being directed down the long, straight streets of the town. The two large tripod mounted weapons the warriors had set up at one point in the battle to fire down the streets his and Hinata's group of civilians were using hadn't helped matters. His group had to temporarily take cover in a drainage ditch, and Hinata had been forced to maintain her Shugohakke for nearly ten straight minutes to protect the group under her care before Naruto's clones made it to the two weapons and destroyed them. Even with the massive number of clones Naruto had produced, they were struggling to prevent the enemy from flanking them and cutting off the civilian's escape route out of the town's walls. Until Kakashi and the others arrived or they finished the evacuation, they were going to have to continue fighting a defensive battle. Yamato just hoped he and Hinata had enough chakra to last that long. Then Yamato heard Naruto's shouts, which alternated between cheering him and Hinata on and insults directed at the warriors, ringing out from somewhere to his right. Despite the danger and his own exhaustion, Yamato allowed himself a brief chuckle when he noticed a blushing mother in Naruto's group cover her toddler's ears and several of the men shaking their head in amusement at the teens antics as they fled. Without even knowing it, the orange clad shinobi was keeping up the moral of the civilians in his group. However, Yamato could tell the blond was also becoming increasingly pissed off at constantly being attacked and not being able to go after the attackers to return the favor. For a fleeting moment, Yamato almost felt sorry for their opponents. There was going to be some serious payback delivered when he finally turned Naruto loose.

Ten minuted later Yamato's group had almost reached their gate. He spotted Hinata several blocks to his right. Behind her, the last of her group was going through their assigned gate in the town's walls. The last few families were slow to exit as several of them felt the need to stop and thank Hinata on their way out the gates, despite her polite urging that they needed to hurry. When the last of the stragglers in her group made it to safety, Hinata fell down exhausted on one knee and with her left hand holding her up against the exterior wall of a house as she tried to catch her breath during the brief lull in the fighting. Yamato glanced away for a moment to check on the progress of his own group. When he looked back, Hinata was fishing around in her equipment pouch for a soldier pill with her free hand. She didn't appear to have her Byakugan activated, as she seemed unaware of the group of warriors who were stealthily approaching her position from around the corner of the building she was leaning against.

"HINATA, LOOK OUT!" Yamato called out. Hinata jerked her head up just as a small metal ball rolled to a stop in front of her. The ball gave off a blinding flash of light and a thunderous noise that nearly blinded and deafened Yamato even as far away as he was. When he could finally see clearly again, the ANBU captain spotted ten of the warriors fleeing toward the castle. The one who had given the order to open fire on Naruto's shadow clones was leading the fleeing warriors with an unconscious Hinata thrown over his shoulder.

"I'M ON IT, YAMATO-SENSEI!" Naruto yelled. Yamato turned toward Naruto's voice and saw that while the blond's group hadn't reached their gate in the wall, they had reached the wall itself. Naruto formed a Rasengan and slammed it into the wall. The six foot thick, fifteen foot tall wall exploded outward leaving a large gap. "EVERYONE, GO! GO! GO!" Naruto yelled as his clones began herding men, women, and children through the breach. Several clones scooped up an elderly couple that was having a hard time getting over the rubble and several children, whose parents were carrying their younger siblings, and carried them on their backs through the breach.

With the civilians well on their way into the safety of the forest on the other side of the wall Naruto turned to face a group of Jaffa who were emerging from behind a building to give chase. The look on his face made the Jaffa freeze in their tracks. "It's my turn now!" Naruto growled as he created a wedge of twenty shadow clones that plowed straight into the group of warriors blocking his path. The blonde followed right on the shadow clones' heels with a Rasengan churning in his hand. Yamato saw him disappear behind the building that partially blocked his view of the group of Jaffa. A split second later the blast of the jutsu hitting its mark launched three warriors airborne. Judging from the massive cloud of dust and debris that extended for several hundred feet down the street Naruto had run down, the three that had been sent flying were the lucky ones. For the next five minutes, Yamato could hear Naruto's shouts and see clouds of dust kicked up by explosive tags and Rasengans marking his path across the town as he blasted through any opposition that was foolish enough to impede his efforts to catch up to Hinata's captors.

* * *

Yamato skewered one of the strange enemies using one of his Mokuton techniques, but had to take cover as two more fired blasts from their weapons. However, before he could retaliate the two armor wearing warriors were launched through the air by a kunai with an explosive tag attached. Turning toward the direction the kunai had originated from Yamato spotted the rest of Team Kakashi and Team 8 approaching. 

"What's the situation?" Kakashi asked as he leaped off a rooftop to land next to his former-ANBU colleague.

"When we arrived, we found that around a hundred of whoever these guys are had rounded up the civilians in the town square, killing a several of them in the process. We engaged them while I sent Bull to find you. Right now, there are only thirty or forty of them that haven't been killed or incapacitated."

Yamato and Kakashi steadied themselves as Sakura punched the ground, causing a wall to collapse on top of a small group of enemy fighters, crushing them where they stood.

"They don't appear to have the ability to use chakra, but their weapons are fairly powerful and they fight well as a unit. Also, according to Hinata, there is something strange about their body structures."

"What did she see?" Kakashi asked.

"I don't know. She never got a chance to tell me. She was protecting the last of the villagers as they fled the battle, but some kind of device that emitted a bright light and unbelievably loud noise went off right next to her and knocked her out. About ten of these guys grabbed her and ran off in the direction of the castle," Yamato answered as he nodded toward a historic castle that had been turned into a tourist attraction on the hill overlooking the town. "Naruto took off after them a couple of minutes ago. I don't think he'll have a problem defeating ten of them by himself and recovering Hinata, but it might be a good idea to send him some backup just in case."

"Sakura! Shino!" Kakashi called out. The two chunnin quickly made their way over to the two older men while dodging blasts of energy from the strange staff weapons.

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei?" the pink-haired teen asked.

"Hinata has been captured by a group of ten of these guys. They ran off in the direction of the castle. Naruto is in pursuit. I want you two to back him up. Shino did you plant your insects on Naruto and Hinata?" The quiet chunnin nodded yes in response. "Good, then you shouldn't have any trouble tracking them."

The two chunnin took off in the direction Naruto had run.

"You're worried about Hinata, aren't you, Shino?" Sakura asked a few minutes later as the pair sped through the treetops. Shino was normally difficult to read, but some how Sakura could sense that he was more tense than usual. He was just giving off a 'worried vibe' as Ino would say.

"Yes, Hinata is my teammate and my friend," Shino answered.

"Don't worry. Naruto won't let anything happen to her. He may be too big of an idiot to realize Hinata likes him, but he still considers her one of his precious people and won't let her get hurt," Sakura said reassuringly.

"How long have you known?" Shino asked.

"That Naruto can be an idiot? Since the day I met him. That Hinata likes Naruto? Since that first Chuunin Exam we all took together," Sakura answered with a small smile.

"Hinata still worries that she'll lose him to you."

Sakura sighed. "She doesn't have anything to worry about. I mean, I think he's a lot more handsome since he came back, and I do 'love' him, just not in that way. Naruto is kind of like a cross between my best friend and the annoying little brother I never had. To tell you the truth, I think he feels the same way about me now. He still hints at us going out on a date every now and then, but he doesn't seem serious about it anymore. I think he does it to tease me more than anything else. Besides, he and Hinata would make a cute couple."

The two teens continued on in silence for a few more minutes.

"Shino," Sakura said without looking at the other ninja.

"Yes?"

"If you breath a word about me thinking Naruto is handsome to anyone, I'll hose you down with insecticide and castrate you in your sleep," Sakura said in a calm, even voice that sent chills up and down Shino's spine.

The normally fearless and unflappable teen let out an audible gulp. "Understood."

"I think we've almost caught up to Naruto," Shino added in an attempt to change the subject.

Sure enough, Shino and Sakura passed the dead bodies of four of the strangely dressed and armed men that had attacked the village. One of them had clearly been killed by a rasengan to the chest. A minute later, the two Leaf ninjas topped a ridge behind the castle and saw an amazing sight. A large ring sat perpendicular to the ground at the top of a small marble set of steps. Inside the ring, a shimmering pool of water seemed to be defying gravity, as it, like the ring that contained it, was also perpendicular to the ground. An unusual looking pedestal with a small dome made out of some kind of red crystal sat a short distance away from the ring. As Sakura and Shino began to run down the hill, they saw one of the attackers run into the pool with an unconscious Hinata over his shoulder. He was quickly followed by three more. Sakura watched as Naruto caught up and leaped into the pool right behind the four men. Then the pool simply vanished in a brief flash of light, leaving no trace of the men or Naruto and Hinata.

"I think we need to get Kakashi-sensei and Yamato-sensei," Sakura said as she came to a stop and stared wide-eyed at the ring while her mind tried to process what she'd just seen.

"Agreed," Shino replied.

* * *

"It doesn't look like they're planning on going anywhere," Carter sighed as she handed the binoculars back to Colonel O'Neill. 

SG-1 had been on a standard scouting mission to a supposedly uninhabited planet only to discover a Goa'uld had apparently set up shop on the planet. A fact the team quickly learned when they spotted a landed mother ship and a new base under construction. They'd then tried to make it back to the stargate only to see a force of around one hundred Jaffa go through it while fifteen remained behind to guard the stargate. That had been four hours ago, and SG-1 was still hiding in the same spot watching the fifteen Jaffa.

"Anyone got any ideas?" Daniel asked.

"I have none, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c answered.

"Colonel?" Sam asked.

All three turned to look at Colonel O'Neill. "We keep waiting. Hopefully they'll leave after the rest of the Jaffa come back through the gate. If not, we'll wait until night and take them out." O'Neill paused for a moment before turning toward the Jaffa member of his team. "Hey, Teal'c, why would they leave a guard force behind for this side of the gate, anyway."

"Most likely, the force we saw go through the stargate was a raiding party sent to capture humans to serve as hosts and slaves," Teal'c answered thoughtfully. "If that's the case, the Jaffa on this side are here to process any prisoners the raiding party might send back, not guard the stargate."

Colonel O'Neill was about to respond when the stargate started to activate. As soon as the event horizon of the wormhole formed, Jaffa started running out of the stargate. The third Jaffa to exit the stargate was carrying an unconscious teenage girl with long dark hair over his shoulder. Three more Jaffa appeared, but, as soon as the sixth Jaffa exited, he was hit from behind and knocked out by an orange blur that came out of the stargate just before it closed. The blur then shot straight toward the fifth Jaffa. The figure slowed down just enough for the members of SG-1 to make out a blonde-headed teenaged boy dressed in an orange and black outfit. When he reached the fifth Jaffa that had exited the stargate the boy slammed his fist into the taller man's face with unbelievable force causing the Jaffa to collapse in a heap. The teen then threw a knife out to each side striking two of the Jaffa who had been guarding the gate in their throats. He then yelled out something as a glowing, spinning ball of light formed in his right hand. The boy slammed the ball of light into another Jaffa who had turned to fire his staff weapon. When the ball of light struck the Jaffa it sent him flying backward at an incredible velocity before slamming into three more Jaffa. The boy made a gesture with his hands and yelled out something else, and suddenly dozens of duplicates of the boy appeared out of thin air. The duplicates managed to take out seven more. By this time, five of the six Jaffa who had not been killed or otherwise incapacitated recovered enough to begin firing back with their staff weapons. The barrage of rapid-fire staff blasts mowed down many of the copies, which vanished in puffs of smoke when hit. However, one blast managed to get through the strike the original in the side just below the ribcage. Despite the wound, the boy somehow managed to throw one last knife at the Jaffa carrying the girl before collapsing. The knife struck the Jaffa in the back of the thigh and caused him to drop the girl and fall to the ground clutching the profusely bleeding wound. However, after the boy collapsed due to his injuries the last of his duplicates vanished in clouds of smoke. The surviving Jaffa began to cautiously move in to finish off the teenager.

"Ah hell," Colonel O'Neill growled as the shock of watching a lone teenager take down fifteen Jaffa in spectacular fashion in less than ninety seconds wore off. "Daniel, dial the gate. Teal'c, grab the boy. I'll get the girl. Carter, cover us." Sam, Jack, and Teal'c rose as one and began firing at the surviving Jaffa as Daniel sprinted for the DHD. The five Jaffa still standing quickly fell in a hail of bullets and staff blasts.

Teal'c reached the boy and was surprised to see him attempting to stand despite the serious wound. The boy saw the Colonel and Major Carter kill two of the remaining Jaffa with short bursts of automatic fire from their P90s, Colonel O'Neill carefully scoop up the girl, and then both members of SG-1 start moving toward them. The teen turned to Teal'c with a grateful smile on his face before collapsing into the older man's arms.

* * *

**Earth: Stargate Command**

"Unscheduled off-world activation," Sergeant Harriman called out over the public address system.

"What have you got, Sergeant?" General Hammond asked as he entered the control room.

"It's SG-1's IDC, sir," the glasses-wearing sergeant replied.

"Okay, open the iris."

A moment after the iris opened Daniel ran through the gate holding up two fingers and yelled, "Medics!"

"Med-team to the Gate Room. We have two incoming wounded," rang out over a speaker in the infirmary.

A couple of minutes later the rest of SG-1 came through the gate carrying the two teens who were quickly passed off to Dr. Fraiser and the arriving med-team.

"Janet, we've got one male in his mid-teens with a staff weapon blast to the abdomen, and an unconscious female of about the same age. We're not sure what happened to her," Major Carter called out when she saw Dr. Fraiser.

Looking at the wound on the blonde-haired teen, Dr. Fraiser ordered, "Okay, the boy's condition is serious but his vitals are stable. Get him to the infirmary and take some X-rays to check for internal injuries. Let's take a look at the girl."

One of the medics had pulled out a penlight and opened one of the girl's eyes. "What the… Dr. Fraiser, you need to take a look at this!"

Dr. Faiser looked up from where she had been taking the girl's pulse and was stunned to see that the girl's eyes were unusually shiny, almost like they had a reflective layer similar to the tapetum located behind the retina of a cat's eyes that allows them to see well in low light. However, what shocked Dr. Frasier the most was the pale lavender color of the irises and the apparently lack of pupils. "Whoa! Now, that is different!"

"What is it?" General Hammond, who had just entered the Gate Room, asked.

"Sir, I'm not sure. It looks like she was just hit by a Zat gun or Goa'uld shock grenade, so she should be fine, but her eyes have a highly abnormal physiology," Dr. Frasier answered. "It could be a mutation or some kind of medical condition. I'd like to get her down to infirmary to give her an MRI and some other tests, just to be on the safe side."

The general simply nodded his approval and said, "Keep me informed." Dr. Frasier and the medic moved the girl to a gurney to take her to Sick Bay.

"Colonel, what happened?" General Hammond asked as he turned to the members of SG-1.

"The uninhabited planet…wasn't, Sir. After we got about five clicks from the gate, we spotted a Ha'tak vessel that had landed on the surface and what appeared to be a base of some description under construction. I decided it was better to return home, than risk a confrontation. We got back to the stargate just in time to watch a Goa'uld raiding party of about a hundred Jaffa go through. Teal'c believes they were probably going to capture people to use as slaves and hosts. They left about fifteen guards at the gate. I decided we should wait either for nightfall to take out the guards or until the raiders returned and hope the guards returned to the base with them. After roughly four hours, six Jaffa returned through the gate carrying the girl, who was unconscious at the time. However, the blonde-headed kid was right on their heels and managed to kill or incapacitate fifteen of the Jaffa in about two minutes. One of the Jaffa managed to hit him with his staff weapon. At that point, we intervened and took out the remaining Jaffa. Then we brought the boy and girl back here," Colonel O'Neill summarized.

"How the hell did that kid manage to take out fifteen Jaffa in two minutes?" the General asked.

Teal'c answered, "He showed an unusually high degree of skill and speed in his attacks, and a number of abilities that I have never seen before."

"That's putting it mildly, Sir," Major Carter jumped in. "The boy was able to move at such a high-speed that we were barely able to follow him with our eyes. He also demonstrated an ability to manipulate some kind of energy to make physical attacks on the Jaffa, and he was able to create solid duplicates of himself."

"Duplicates?"

"Like a human Xerox, sir," O'Neill answered. "They could move on their own, and you couldn't tell them apart from the original, but when they were hit they disappeared in a cloud of smoke."

"This boy sounds like he could be potentially dangerous, do you believe he is a threat?" the General asked.

"General Hammond, I believe the boy poses no danger to us or this facility," Teal'c interrupted. "When he engaged the Jaffa, he fought honorably and seemed solely focused on retrieving the girl from her captors. Also, when the boy saw Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter come to her aid, he appeared to be genuinely relieved. After seeing the girl was safely in Colonel O'Neill's hands, He turned to me and smiled before losing consciousness."

"Colonel, do you agree with Teal'c's assessment?"

"Pretty much, sir," O'Neill answered. "I say we find out what those two kids' story is and then decide what to do."

"Okay, I'll trust your judgment on the issue, but I'm still going to post a couple of guards outside the infirmary, just to be sure. I want all of you to report to the conference room for a full debriefing in one hour," General Hammond ordered.

"Yes, Sir," Colonel O'Neill replied.

"General Hammond," Daniel called out before the general left the Gate Room.

"Yes, Dr. Jackson?"

"I'd like permission to wait in the infirmary for them to wake up. We don't know if they speak our language and it would probably be a good idea to have someone on hand to translate so we can avoid any misunderstandings," Daniel said.

"Good idea, permission granted," the general responded to their resident linguist.

* * *

When her senses started to return to her as she regained consciousness, Hinata felt something constricting her right bicep, and a hand grabbing her arm. Her heart rate skyrocketed when she opened her eyes and saw that a man dressed in strange blue cloths was about to stick a needle in her arm. Conditioned reflexes developed during years of training overrode the confusion and fear of waking up in a strange place. She grabbed the man's hand and twisted it while simultaneously pushing it back so his wrist was bent at a painful angle, making him drop the syringe. She followed up by kicking the man away from her and leaping off the bed to her left to put distance between herself and the threat. As soon as she landed, Hinata dropped into a Gentle Fist stance. The man in the blue cloths stumbled backwards knocking over a monitor mounted on a small cart. The commotion drew the attention of another man dressed in a camouflage uniform who ran into the room and pointed a strange device toward Hinata that she instinctually realized was a weapon by the way the he brandished it. 

"_Byakugan!"_ Hinata activated her bloodline with a quick series of hand seals and prepared to defend herself.

The man was startled by the sudden change in the petite teen girl's face as the nerves, veins, and arteries along her temples bulged, giving her face a much more fierce look.

"_N-n-naruto-kun?"_ Hinata said in a startled voice when her activated bloodline allowed her to see the blonde lying on a bed behind her that had been concealed by a curtain.

"_Hinata, it's alright. They're friends,"_ Naruto said in a weak voice as he pulled the curtain back.

Dr. Fraiser and Daniel who had been standing by the blonde's bed stared in shock at Hinata's face as her activated Byakugan came into view. They visibly relaxed when Hinata deactivated her bloodline, and her face quickly returned to a normal, if very confused and worried expression.

"It's okay, Airman. She was just startled. You can holster your sidearm," Dr. Fraiser said to the guard who still had his pistol out.

As the guard acknowledged the order and holstered his pistol but stayed in the room, Dr. Fraiser turned her attention back to her two teenaged patients.

"_F-f-friends? W-where are we? How'd we get here? What happened to the people that attacked the village?"_ Hinata asked Naruto in rapid succession. She was still looking over her shoulder at Naruto, as she wasn't prepared to turn her back on the armed man in front of her just yet.

Naruto didn't answer but instead simply stared at Hinata with his mouth hanging open and his face rapidly turning red as a blush spread from his cheeks to the rest of his face now that the curtain was no longer blocking his view of her.

"_Naruto-kun? Naruto-kun? Hello, Konoha to Uzumaki Naruto. What are you staring at?"_ she asked. There was still no answer.

"_What did you do to Naruto-kun?" _Hinata yelled in a panicked voice as she looked from Naruto to Dr. Fraiser and Daniel.

The woman said something in a language she couldn't understand. However, she could understand the man with the glasses, _"I don't think he's acting like that because of anything we did."_ The man paused as if he was struggling with what to say.

Hinata practically growled at the pair standing over Naruto's bed,_ "If you hurt him, I'll…" _It was at that moment that the air-conditioner in the infirmary decided to kick in and she felt goose bumps run down her exposed back and bottom.

"EEEEKKKKK!!!!!" Hinata ripped the curtain down and wrapped it around herself when the fact that all she was wearing was an open-backed hospital gown finally sank in. She then made eye contact with Naruto again, whose face seemed frozen in an expression of astonished wonder. Hinata started swaying back and forth slightly before her eyes rolled back into her head and she fainted from embarrassment.

"Crap!" the guard cried out while lunging forward to catch the unconscious teenage girl before she hit the concrete floor and hurt herself. When he looked up the he saw Dr. Faiser checking the boy who had also passed out with a small trickle of blood running down from his nose.

* * *

**Naruto's World: Hokage's Office**

"Okay, let me get this straight. Hinata was knocked unconscious and captured during a battle with a mysterious group of attackers, that we now know are not even human. Naruto took off in pursuit of some of the attackers who tried to escape carrying Hinata. You two chased after him," Tsunade said as she pointed at Sakura and Shino, "and arrived just in time to see some of our mystery attackers escape with Hinata into what looked like a pool of water that was perpendicular to the ground and contained by what the locals thought was a glorified lawn ornament. Then you saw Naruto follow the kidnappers into the pool of water right before it vanished."

"Correct," Kakashi and Sakura answered.

"That boy is going to be the death of me," Tsunade groaned as she rubbed her temples in a vain attempt to ward off her approaching migraine.

Tsunade turned to the scarred special jonin who was also in her office, "Ibiki, have you been able to get the prisoners to talk?"

"Oh, I can get them to talk. The problem is I don't know their language and they don't know ours so I have no idea what they're saying," Ibiki responded.

Tsunade looked down at the drawing of the ring and the pedestal that Sai had included in his report.

"Sakura, I want you and Shikamaru to see if you can dig up some more information on whatever this thing is and what it does," Tsunade said as she held up Sai's drawing. "Ibiki, I want you to keep working on the prisoners. Try to find someone who can figure out how to communicate with them. Kakashi, go find my perverted former-teammate and bring him back here," Tsunade ordered. "Yamato, inform Hiashi of what happened. Dismissed!"

Everyone quickly left to carry out his or her individual assignment.

Shizune stuck her head in the office door when she heard the Hokage's head hit her desk with a loud thud. "Tsunade-hime, are you okay?"

"I'm just friggin' peachy," Tsunade sighed with her forehead still firmly planted in the middle of her desk right on top of her winning lottery ticket and the latest report on Akatsuki. One of the stacks of paperwork on the desk suddenly collapsed, burying the Hokage's head. 'Yup, just peachy.'

* * *

**  
**

**Author's Notes: There you have it, the long awaited first chapter of my Naruto/Stargate SG-1 crossover. Reviews are welcome, but no flames or spam, please.**

** Author's Note (Added 1/3/2008): I have re-written one of the fight scenes in this chapter, and may do the same at a later date with the scene where SG-1 encounters Naruto and Hinata for the first time. I'll also be going through and correcting spelling/grammar mistakes in this chapter as I come across them. **


	2. Chapter 2: Three Worlds

**Shinobi Odyssey**

* * *

"Normal speech."

"_Speaking in a foreign language."_

******Disclaimer: ****Masashi Kishimoto owns **_**Naruto **_**and all the characters from the anime and manga****. The **_**Stargate**_** franchise is owned by MGM.**

******Please do not reproduce this story without the permission of the author, huntsvilletiger. **

* * *

**********Chapter 2: Three Worlds**

**********P3X-4117**

Massive pillars of smoke and flame rose into the night sky from the still burning Ha'tak vessel. The disabled Goa'uld mothership lay relatively intact, if aflame, a few hundred yards from where it had originally sat following a frantic, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to take off when the three attacking vessels first emerged from hyperspace.

In the skies above, the screech of death gliders echoed in the night as they loitered overhead in support of the units still searching the surrounding woods for holdouts. Every so often, the pilots of the gliders would see the flash of a staff weapon or zat'ni'katel indicating one of the patrols had found someone.

A little over three miles away at the Stargate, three hundred Jaffa warriors stood in formation. Their faces taking on a ghoulish appearance in the dim illumination provided by the planet's two moons and the flickering flames that raged in the distance.

"Jaffa cree!" the lead Jaffa warrior called out when the Stargate flushed sideways. As one, the Jaffa kneeled on one knee and bowed their heads. Their commander stood with his head lowered and his arms outstretched to his sides in a sign of respect.

A statuesque redheaded woman wearing a black cloak covered in intricate gold braid emerged from the shimmering event horizon of the open stargate. The woman's eyes glowed for a brief moment as she surveyed the assembled warriors.

"What have you to report?" she demanded of the commander of the Jaffa.

"Lord Osiris, Tilgath's forces have been annihilated. We are currently searching the area for any who may have eluded our initial assault."

"And the target?"

"I do not believe him to still be on this world, my Lord."

"Why is that?"

The Jaffa warrior opened his hand to reveal the brass cylinder of a spent cartridge casing to his master.

"The Tau'ri," Osiris spat. The Goa'uld symbiote within the woman's body ruthlessly suppressed the feeling of taunting laughter rising from the mind of its host. 'Mark my words, woman, Lord Anubus shall deal with the Tau'ri in due time.'

"Raze this place to the ground. Execute the prisoners."

"As you command, my Lord."

* * *

**Earth**

"Hey, Cassie, have you started on number twenty-two yet?"

Bbbrriinngg, Bbbrriinngg.

"Huh, yeah, Diane…you can take a look at what I've got so far," Cassandra Fraiser said as she left to answer the ringing phone.

"Hello, Fraiser residence," the seventeen year old said after picking up the receiver of the phone in the kitchen.

"Hi, Cassie, it's me."

"Oh hi, Mom," Cassandra replied. She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall and noticed it was almost 7 PM. "What's up? I thought you were planning to be home by 6:30, did something happen at work?"

"Actually, yes. I've got a couple of new patients, so I am going to have to stay late tonight."

"Is everyone okay? It's not anyone I know, is it?" Cassandra asked in a worried voice. She knew her adoptive mother trusted the night-shift medical staff and wouldn't stay late unless she was really needed.

"No, everyone's fine. The patients are… guests from Toronto," Dr. Fraiser answered.

Cassandra was relieved but rolled her eyes at the mention of the lame cover story she had been told to use when she first came to Earth. None of her friends ever really bought that she was from Canada. Fortunately, the majority of the kids at her school were military brats whose parents also worked at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex that housed the Stargate program, the Air Force Academy, or one of the other military bases in the Colorado Springs area. They didn't press her too much on where she was from once they found out her adoptive mother was in the Air Force. Most of them were smart enough to know that some of their parents were involved in something they weren't supposed to talk about. A sudden thought occurred to Cassandra, why had her mother called them 'guests from Toronto' instead of just guests? She would have understood what she meant either way...unless. "So…how old are they?"

"Cassie, you know I can't discuss what goes on here, especially over the phone," Dr. Fraiser replied.

"Oh, come on! It's not like I don't know what you guys do, and you've already told me they're ali…uh, from Toronto," Cassandra argued.

"Cassie…"

"Pretty please," Cassandra said in her best little girl voice.

Sitting at the desk in her office, Dr. Fraiser sighed. She had a good idea where this conversation was headed. Cassandra had adapted to life on Earth better than she could have hoped in the almost seven years since they found her hiding behind a bush on the planet Hanka. However, she knew it bothered Cassandra not to have friends her own age she could talk to openly about her past and all the trouble she'd had adjusting to life on Earth. As a parent, Dr. Fraiser was tempted to tell her daughter about the two new guests, but two things stood in the way. The first issue was that she knew very little about Naruto and Hinata, and experience had taught her to be careful when dealing with unknown aliens. She would never willingly put her adopted daughter in a position where she might be harmed. Her first impression of the two teens was, that despite their strange abilities, they were both 'good kids.' Still, there was plenty of room for surprises. The second obstacle was one of security. The Stargate Program was the government's most closely guarded secret, and as an officer in the Air Force she was obligated to maintain that secret. Of course, Cassandra had been right when she called her on the fact that she'd already said more than she should have. Then again her daughter was also recognized to be somewhat of a special case as far as the security rules were concerned and was even allowed to visit the SGC on occasion. She was probably the only seventeen year old on the planet with a top-secret security clearance. 'Too bad she can't put that on her college applications,' Janet mused. 'As long as I'm careful about what I say, it should be okay. I probably need to clear it with General Hammond before I tell her more though.'

"It's a boy and a girl. They're a year or two younger than you. And before you ask, I don't know how long they'll be here or if you'll be able to meet them, so don't get your hopes up. They need a chance to learn English first, and I want to get to know them a little better before I agree to anything. If they turn out to be alright, I'll consider talking to General Hammond about you coming for a visit."

"Thanks, Mom. I owe you big time," Cassandra cheerfully replied. In truth, she was a little disappointed at the news they couldn't speak English yet but hid it well. Balancing out her disappointment was the fact that one of them was a girl close to her age.

"I'm going to remember you said that when we clean out the garage this weekend." Dr. Fraiser teased, causing Cassandra to emit a small groan. The two members of the Fraiser household had been dreading the task for weeks, but it had gotten to the point that the garage was so crammed full of junk that they couldn't park a car inside it anymore.

"Couldn't you order someone from the base to do it for us? You are an officer, you know."

Dr. Fraiser laughed. "Nice try, but I think the General might have a problem with that. Have you been studying for your chemistry test?"

"Yes, ma'am. Diana is here and we're working through the practice problems from the textbook."

"Good. You can call me at my office number if there's anything you can't figure out. I do know a thing or two about the subject, after all. There's a frozen pizza in the freezer the two of you can cook for dinner if you want. I'll grab something here."

"Thanks, Mom. I love you."

"I love you too, sweetie. I'll call again when I get ready to leave. Study hard."

"Okay, Mom. We will. Bye."

Miles away at one of the telephone company's computer rooms, a computer virus expertly hidden within thousands of lines of code encrypted and forwarded the mp3 file it had made of the conversation to another computer in a small non-descript house located in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.

* * *

"_I-I-I'm n-not coming out…s-sorry"_ the lump in the middle of the bed stuttered.

"Having a problem?" Daniel turned to see Sam standing a short distance away with a laundry basket.

"You could say that," a frustrated Daniel replied. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He'd been trying to coax Hinata out from under the covers of her hospital bed for the last five minutes. She had steadfastly, if politely, refused.

Sam looked questioningly at Dr. Fraiser, who had just walked out of her office to join them.

"Embarrassed teenage girl," Dr. Fraiser reported.

"Ah. What happened?" Sam asked.

"Oh, nothing much," Daniel said with a sigh. "She just knocked Sergeant Sawyer on his butt; accidentally flashed half the infirmary, including Janet, the boy, and myself; ripped a privacy curtain down to cover herself; and then did a pretty good impression of a tomato before fainting."

"Ooo, not good," Sam replied. "The boy too, huh? Do you think she…you know?"

"Judging by her reaction, I'd say definitely," Dr. Fraiser answered with a knowing smile.

"Um, am I missing something?" Daniel asked.

"Yes," both women responded in unison.

"How'd he react?" Sam asked.

"Who? The boy? I'm not sure, he fainted, too." Daniel replied, obviously confused by the whole affair.

Sam's face broke into an amused smile that she tried to hide from Daniel. He was a brilliant linguist and archaeologist, but despite his marriage to his late wife, Sha're, he could still be surprisingly clueless at times when it came to women.

Dr. Fraiser shifted her gaze to the laundry basket. "Are those their cloths?"

"No, their clothes are still being washed. It took the SFs the better part of an hour to find all the knives, throwing stars, and other stuff hidden in them," Sam said, shaking her head in amazement. The head of base security claimed he had never seen so many concealed weapons and other items on two individuals in his entire career. What's more, there were a number of empty slots for more weapons in the pouches and holsters both teenagers had been wearing. "Captain Meyers said he'd have someone drop them off when they're done. I just decided to pick up some clothes from one of the supply rooms for the girl to wear, since it sounded like she wouldn't be here too long. I wasn't sure of her size, so I tried to bring enough so she'd have some options. Not that it matters." She didn't bother repeating the age-old military joke about standard issue clothing coming in two sizes, too large and too small.

Sam pointed toward the Hinata-shaped lump on the bed. "Mind if I try?"

"Be my guest," Daniel answered.

Figuring that, unlike Daniel, she could get away with the direct approach without freaking Hinata out, Sam walked up to the bed and slowly started to pull the covers back. Hinata tried to worm her way further under the covers but quickly ran out of bed. She sighed then poked her head out from under the sheets and blanket so that only the top of her head and her eyes were visible. Sam smiled warmly at her, showed her the basket of clothes, and then nudged Daniel with her elbow.

"Oh, right…_Hello. My name is Daniel Jackson and this is Dr. Janet Fraiser and Major Samantha Carter. What's your name?"_ Daniel asked.

"_H-hello, I'm Hyuuga Hinata,"_ Hinata responded after uncovering her mouth.

"_Well, Hinata-san, I'm sure you'd like to get dressed, but Dr. Fraiser needs to give you a quick checkup first to make sure you're alright,"_ Daniel said. _"Are you okay with her doing that?"_

Hinata warily nodded her head, but neither her nor Dr. Fraiser or Major Carter moved.

"Oh," Daniel said in an embarrassed voice when he noticed all three women staring at him and realized what was wrong. "I need to be on the other side of the curtain, don't I?"

"Yes, you do," Dr. Fraiser said before gently pushing Daniel away from the bed.

"_I'll be right over here if you need to tell Dr. Fraiser anything, Hinata,"_ Daniel said. "Janet, I told her that I'd be right over here if she needs to tell you anything."

"Daniel, this is not the first time I've had a patient in this infirmary who couldn't speak English. We'll manage. Now shoo!" Dr. Fraiser said as she closed the curtain. She turned back to Hinata and patted the edge of the mattress. After pushing the covers off, Hinata sat up and swung her feet around so that she was facing the doctor. Sam took a seat on a stool next to the bed.

Dr. Fraiser held the end of her stethoscope to her own chest, said the word 'breath,' and took a deep breath to show Hinata what she wanted her to do. When the teen nodded her understanding, the older woman put the earpieces in her ears and untied the top tie on the hospital gown. Hinata blushed and grabbed the gown right above her breasts to keep it from falling too far. She jumped slightly when the cold stethoscope touched the bare skin of her chest.

"Sorry about that," Dr. Fraiser said. "Breath."

Hinata took a deep breath.

Dr. Fraiser repeated the process on another spot on her front and two more on her back.

A few minutes later, Dr. Fraiser was taking her pulse and blood pressure. Despite the fact that she was obviously nervous, the teen's heart rate was amazingly low, around fifty beats a minute, which spoke to amazing physical shape she appeared to be in. In fact, both teens were remarkably fit. They showed signs of not only constant physical conditioning but access to excellent medical care and food as well.

The gauge on the blood pressure cuff jumped slightly.

"Uh, Janet," Sam said in a slightly alarmed voice.

Dr. Fraiser looked up and was surprised to see the veins and arteries around Hinata's eyes were bulging out again. While Hinata was staring directly at her, Dr. Fraiser got the strange sense that she was not looking at her but through her. The older woman tried to figure out how to ask Hinata if she could take a closer look at her eyes without startling her and making her stop what she was doing.

"_Hyuuga-san, may Fraiser-san examine yours eyes the way they are now?"_ Sam asked in halting Japanese, surprising Dr. Fraiser.

"_Y-yes."_

"She said it's okay."

Dr. Fraiser gently felt the raised blood vessels on Hinata's face. "I didn't know you speak Japanese, Sam."

"I don't…well, not much anyway. I was assigned to an F-16 squadron in Korea the first year after I got out of flight school and was able to go to Japan on leave a few times. Unfortunately, I only picked up enough of the language to ask directions, order at restaurants, that kind of thing." Sam replied.

With Hinata's Byakugan activated, Dr. Fraiser could see that the girl actually did have pupils. They were almost the same color as her irises and were barely visible. She aimed a penlight into Hinata's eyes. Surprisingly, the pupils didn't respond the way she expected. They barely contracted when exposed to a visible light. Normally, it was the kind of response Dr. Fraiser would expect from someone who was blind or had extremely poor vision, but it was obvious neither condition applied to Hinata. 'If her eyes aren't as sensitive to visible light when they're like this, are they sensitive to other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum instead?' she wondered.

"Sam, could you ask her what she was looking at?" Dr. Fraiser asked hoping the answer might provide a clue to whether or not her hunch was correct.

"I'll try," the major responded before relaying the question.

Hinata's answer was immediate and carried far more emotion than either woman expected,_"Naruto-kun."_

"_Naruto, his name?"_ Sam asked awkwardly while pointing in the direction of Naruto's bed.

Hinata nodded yes, but closed her eyes tightly for a moment to prevent herself from breaking into tears. She had volunteered Team 8 when she heard Kakashi was looking for a tracking team to accompany his own team on a mission to recover Sasuke. She had wanted to help Naruto bring his teammate back and possibly prove to him how much stronger she had gotten while he was gone. Instead, she screwed everything up. He had gotten hurt, and they had probably lost their best chance so far to bring Sasuke back all because of her. She just hoped Naruto didn't hate her too much for it when he woke up. She wouldn't blame him if he did, though. She certainly hated herself at the moment. She desperately wanted to crawl back under the covers and hide. 'No! I won't hide. Naruto-kun wouldn't hide,' a defiant part of herself shouted back. She tried to regain her composure. If she gave up and hid, it would be an insult to his ninja way that she had adopted as her own. Somehow she'd endure and find a way to make it up to him.

Seeing the emotion wash over Hinata's face in the brief moment before she schooled her expression, Dr. Fraiser and Major Carter finally realized she wasn't simply embarrassed that she had accidentally flashed a boy she had a crush on. She was blaming herself for him being injured. At that moment, both of the older women wished they knew someway to make the teen feel better. They could see she was trying to be strong, but the pain and guilt were still visible in her eyes.

"Janet," Sam said, "when you're done how about I take her to one of the guest suits and let her use the bathroom there to get cleaned up before Daniel talks to her." It wasn't much, but it might help a little.

* * *

A few minutes later, Dr. Fraiser prepared to change Naruto's bandages for the first time since he arrived. He had been in a deep sleep since the fainting incident earlier. It wasn't unusual given his injury. If anything, Dr. Fraiser was surprised he'd woken up at all, but she mistakenly attributed it to the fact that Naruto was young and in exceptional physical condition.

Sam waved goodbye as she and Daniel left the infirmary to take Hinata to one of the guest suits where she could take a shower with some sense of privacy. The timing was fortunate. Dr. Fraiser didn't want Hinata see just how bad Naruto's wound appeared. Staff blasts tended to create horrific looking wounds. She was worried about the girl. Hinata was clearly depressed and blaming herself for what happened. Dr. Fraiser wished there was more she could do, but the girl seemed hesitant to talk to Daniel about what was bothering her, although she would talk to him about other subjects.

Part of the problem was while Daniel could speak Japanese, it wasn't one of the languages he was completely fluent in and he'd barely had an opportunity to practice speaking it in over a decade. According to Daniel, Hinata's way of speaking was more formal and likely closer to the proper way the language was supposed to be spoken on her world. This made it harder for Daniel to understand Hinata, since her language had evolved independently from 'Earth' Japanese for an unknown amount of time. There were a lot of peculiarities to Naruto and Hinata's language that would take time for Daniel to sort out. For example, both teens seemed to have some words that derived from English in their vocabularies. While that fact certainly hinted at how a blond-haired, blue-eyed fifteen year old could grow up as a native Japanese speaker on an alien planet, Daniel believed their grammar indicated their language broke off from Earth Japanese sometime before English and other Indo-European languages began to contribute a significant number of words to the Japanese vocabulary in the late 19th century. Ironically, Daniel had an easier time understanding Naruto in the brief time he was awake, since his accent and less formal way of speaking seemed to be a little closer to the modern Japanese Daniel was familiar with.

Dr. Fraiser didn't believe Hinata was a danger to herself, but given the communication problems she couldn't be one hundred percent sure. She hated that. Hinata appeared to be a very kind hearted girl. She'd even insisted on apologizing to Sergeant Sawyer, the nurse she'd knocked down earlier, before leaving the infirmary with Sam and Daniel. Dr. Fraiser hated the idea of not being able to help the teenager when she was obviously hurting.

Putting aside her concerns about Hinata for a moment, Dr. Fraiser turned her attention back to the job at hand. She snipped the outer layer of bandages with a pair of shears. She had to be careful. She didn't want to cause her patient any more pain than he already felt. Slowly, she pealed back the bandages. Suddenly, she froze. The shears clattered to the floor as she stared at the exposed wound in alarm and disbelief.

"Impossible! He couldn't be!"

Dr. Fraiser turned and called out to the two SFs standing guard outside the infirmary for help.

* * *

**Two Hours, Later**

"Sorry, we took so long, Janet," Sam said as she and Daniel walked back into the infirmary with a freshly showered Hinata.

"Not a problem," Dr. Fraiser responded before turning to Hinata with a warm smile. "Are you feeling better now that you've had a chance to clean up?"

Hinata looked to Daniel. _"She asked if you are feeling better."_

Hinata gave Dr. Fraiser a smile that didn't quiet reach her eyes and nodded her head in response, all the while trying to surreptitiously peak around the doctor.

"He hasn't woken up yet, but you're welcome to go sit with him until he does."

Daniel translated. Hinata nervously bit down on her bottom lip, before heading over to Naruto's bed on the other side of the infirmary.

Dr. Fraiser and Major Carter shared a concerned look as they watched the girl walk across the room.

"What'd you find out?" O'Neil asked making everyone but Dr. Fraiser jump. He was sitting on an empty hospital bed, flipping through the sports section of a newspaper.

"Didn't see you sitting there, Jack," Daniel apologized. "Her name is Hinata Hyuuga and his is Naruto Uzumaki. She claims they are ninjas…"

"Excuse me, did you say ninjas?" Colonel O'Neill interrupted.

"Yes."

"Cool."

"Anyway, they…" Daniel started to say.

"What kind of ninja wears orange? I thought they were supposed to be, you know…stealthy," Jack interrupted again.

"Apparently, the same kind that can make copies of themselves and blow up Jaffa with glowing balls of light," Daniel responded. "As I was saying, they where on a mission of their own when they came across a town near the Stargate on their world that was under attack by the raiding party we saw go through the gate on P3X-4117. You're not going to believe this, but she said she, Naruto, and one other ninja managed to rescue the townspeople and take out over half the Jaffa before she was knocked out."

"After seeing how the boy fights, I'm not that surprised," O'Neill replied. He'd been wondering what happened to the rest of the Jaffa that went through the gate. "Did she say anything about the eye thing or their other abilities?"

"Yes actually. Her eyes look the way they do because she has a 'kekkei genkai,' which roughly translates as 'blood inheritance limit,' the type she has is called the 'Byakugan.'" Daniel answered.

"So it's genetic?" Dr. Fraiser asked.

"I think so. She said everyone in her clan has the same kind of eyes. She was kind of vague on the specifics, but from what I can tell when this Byakugan is activated, like it was when all the veins around her eyes were bulging earlier, her eyes can sense something she called 'chakra,' see in a 360 degrees arc, and from the sound of it, act something like X-ray vision."

"I don't know how that's possible, but it does explain how she knew it was Naruto behind the curtain earlier," Dr. Fraiser responded.

"I think it may be part of the reason she freaked out when the nurse tried to take the blood sample, too. Apparently, 'kekkei genkai' are very much prized on their world, and some of her village's rivals will go to great lengths to try to obtain them. I got the impression that she's had some bad experiences in that regard," Daniel added. "I also don't think she was telling me everything."

"Still trying to decided how much she trusts us, huh?" O'Neill asked.

"Looks that way," Daniel sighed. "I can't really blame her given the circumstances."

"It occurs to me that stripping her naked and dressing her in a hospital gown was probably not the best way for us to make a good first impression," O'Neil responded.

"She was covered in mud and soaked to the skin when you brought her here. What were we supposed to do? Let her catch pneumonia?" Dr. Fraiser asked.

Jack held up his hands defensively. "Hey, all I'm saying is a few pairs of pajama bottoms would go a long way toward improving interstellar diplomacy. Not to mention keeping me from mooning your staff during physicals."

"He does kind of have a point, Janet," Sam said, apologetically.

"Especially on the mooning part. I don't think anyone wants to see him do that again," Daniel added.

Colonel O'Neill looked at Daniel. Daniel stared back, "Yes?"

"Sorry, I was just trying to decided whether I should feel insulted or relieved to hear you say that."

Dr. Fraiser conceded defeat, mainly to change the subject. "Okay, okay, I'll look into it the next time I order supplies."

"How'd she take the news about us not being sure how to get them home?" O'Neill asked.

"She hasn't said anything since I told her, but she comes off as kind of shy to begin with, so it's hard to tell," Daniel answered.

"Colonel, I'm worried about her, and it's not just that she's shy. Janet and I think she's blaming herself for Naruto being injured," Sam added.

"And now that she knows they're stuck here you believe she thinks that's her fault, too?"

"Possibly, sir."

O'Neill looked over at Hinata, who was pulling a chair up to the side of Naruto's bed, and frowned. "Daniel, any ideas?"

"I'm actually having some problems communicating with her, plus she seems reluctant to open up to me. I might have an idea on how to deal with that, but I need to make a couple of phone calls first."

" Do what you have to do." He turned to Dr. Fraiser and asked, "I'm guessing that's not the reason you asked me down here, is it?"

"No, Sir. I found something you need to see." Dr. Fraiser opened the folder she had in her hand and passed Colonel O'Neill a photograph.

He grimaced slightly when he saw it was a very graphic photo of the staff weapon wound in Naruto's side. The wound was a foot wide and consisted of flesh that resembled charred hamburger meat. "Glad I didn't eat dinner before coming here."

"One of the medics took that photo for the records when he first arrived in the infirmary," Dr. Fraiser said. "Despite how bad the wound looks externally, his condition was extremely stable when we first started working on him. At first, I though he had merely received a glancing blow from the blast that hit him."

"Doc, I was there. The kid caught the full force of it when he was shot. I'm surprised it didn't blow a hole clean through him," O'Neill said.

"Yes, Sir. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary for someone hit by a staff weapon. As you know, staff weapons fire blasts of plasma that not only have significant penetrating and explosive effects but also inflict thermal damage. That's one of the reasons we've had so much trouble developing body armor that can effectively counter the threat. The types of armor that protect best against the penetration and blast also become super heated by the plasma and either shatter from the rapid change in temperature or cause severe burns to the wearer," Sam pointed out. She too was now curious as to why Naruto's injuries weren't more serious.

Dr. Fraiser nodded her head in thanks to Carter for the explanation. "Usually, we get a lot of second and third degree burns in addition to the internal injuries. That's both good and bad. The burns tend to cauterize the wound, significantly reducing the amount of external bleeding. The down side is they also make the wound extremely painful, slow to heal, and prone to infection. By the looks of it, the Goa'uld went out of their way to design a weapon that, if it didn't kill you outright, would cause the most difficult to treat and painful wounds possible."

O'Neill could hear the disgust for the brutality behind the Goa'uld's design for the staff weapon in her voice. He didn't doubt for a moment that they considered inflicting the maximum amount of pain and suffering a key factor in which weapons they chose to equip their armies with, but he could also see a more practical military reasoning behind the weapon. Given the natural resilience and rapid healing abilities of the Jaffa, a weapon that caused the type of injuries the staff weapon did prevented the majority of the Jaffa warriors who were wounded in battle from recovering or being healed quickly enough to return to the fighting in time to make a difference in a battle. Also, the Goa'uld practice of absorbing the armies of conquered rivals meant that many of the wounded Jaffa would be able to serve their new master once they recovered. If you looked at other sentient forms of life as mere 'resources' to be expended in achieving your goals like the Goa'uld did, it all made perfect sense. Of course, that didn't change the fact that the whole lot of them were a bunch of heartless, megalomaniacal assholes. It just made them a little easier to predict.

"We also took some X-rays of Naruto and ran him through the MRI. That was when I first noticed something odd. He did have some internal injuries but they were not anywhere near the severity of what you'd expect in someone who took the full brunt of a staff blast to the abdomen." Dr. Fraiser flipped the switch on one panel of the light box mounted on the wall next to them, illuminating an X-ray image that was clipped to its surface. "This was taken when he and Hinata first arrived five hours ago. See the two fractures in his ribs right above where he was shot?"

Everyone nodded. It was hard to miss. The ribs were cleanly broken all the way through, and the fractures were easy to pick out.

"Normally, it takes one to two months for a broken rib to fully heal." Dr. Fraiser flipped the switch for the second panel of the light box, illuminating another X-ray image. In the new image, the fractures only appeared to go halfway through the two ribs. "I took this an hour ago after I changed his bandages and saw this." She handed O'Neill a second photo. This one showed Naruto's side from the same angle as the first. The wound was now almost completely closed and the charred flesh around it was scabbed over and appeared to cover only half the area it did in the first photo. Around the now smaller wound, the skin was only reddened as it were merely sunburned.

"Whoa, are you sure he isn't a Goa'uld?" Daniel asked.

"Positive. Sam would have sensed it if he was, but we took X-rays of his head and neck just to be sure. There is no sign he has, or ever had, a symbiote. I can't explain it, but as far as I can tell so far, he's completely human."

"How long until he's completely healed?"

"If he continues to heal at his present rate, mid-day tomorrow. I plan on keeping him here for observation for at least the whole day, though," Dr. Fraiser answered.

* * *

Later that night, Naruto slowly started to wake up. At least he assumed it was nighttime. Although the lights in the infirmary had been dimmed, there didn't appear to be any windows in the room and the only clock in view had twenty-four numbers on it instead of twelve. 'When the hell is 22 o'clock?' he groggily wondered.

It took another couple of minutes in his doped up condition to wake up enough to realize he wasn't alone. He could hear someone else breathing. When he turned his head toward the source of the sound, he was greeted with the sight of Hinata asleep in a chair next to his bed with her head resting on her crossed arms on top of the mattress. The blood instantly rushed to his face as the memory of what he'd seen before fainting came rushing back. He felt like the image was burned into his brain. 'Oh crap, I hope I'm not turning into a pervert like Ero-sennin,' Naruto worried.

He took a deep breath and tried to focus on the clothes she was wearing now in a vain attempt to somehow replace the memory he had of her from earlier with one of the way she appeared now. The first thing Naruto noticed was that the pair of dark green pants Hinata now wore were nearly identical in style to the kind Kakashi and many other Konoha shinobi wore. On her feet were the same sandals she had been wearing when they stopped at the monastery. She also wore a hoodless gray sweatshirt. Naruto had to smile at that. The sweatshirt looked like a tent on Hinata's small frame. 'I guess they were out of her size. She does look comfortable though.'

On impulse, he reached out and gently stroked the side of her face with the tips of his fingers. Hinata moved slightly and let out a contented-sounding sigh, which startled Naruto enough to make him yank his hand back like he'd been burned. He cringed, expecting her to wake up and be mad at him. Instead, she snuggled her head into her arms like they were a fluffy pillow and a smile appeared her lips. Naruto held his breath until she settled back down and he was sure she was still asleep. He had no idea why he'd had the sudden urge to touch her like that. It had just felt 'right' at the time.

It was then that he spotted their clothes, which had apparently been laundered, sitting in two neatly folded stacks on a cart a short distance away. He gulped when he noticed Hinata's bra and panties on top of her stack. Very carefully, he lifted his head off the pillow and looked down at the gap between Hinata's back and the waist of her pants caused by the way she was leaning on his bed. His eyes widened when he confirmed that, yes, Hinata Hyuuga was indeed going commando. He started to sit up more to get a better view when it hit him what he was doing. Naruto quickly screwed his eyes shut and slowly laid his head back down on the pillow.

Not realizing he was speaking aloud, Naruto mumbled, _"What the hell am I thinking! Bad Naruto! Bad!" _He took a deep breath to collect himself._"Okay, it's only Hinata. I've known her since we were both what…six years old? So what if I saw her almost naked? She's still the same person she was yesterday…even if I know what a cute ass she has now…and I've seen it naked." _Naruto caught himself slowly starting to lean over to take a second peak. Shocked that he was doing it again, he grabbed his pillow and held it over his mouth to muffle his scream of,_ "Damn it, damn it, damn it! I am not a pervert! I. Am. Not. A. Pervert."_

Naruto had been so groggy from the painkillers and antibiotics Dr. Fraiser had given him and focused on Hinata on the right side of the bed that he had failed to notice Daniel, who was trying desperately not to laugh and snort the coffee he had been drinking out his nose, standing on the left side. Once Daniel had safely lowered the coffee mug from his lips and was fairly confident he could talk without laughing, he cleared his throat to get Naruto's attention.

"_Um, hey…how long have you been standing there?"_ an embarrassed Naruto asked when he moved the pillow away from his face and finally spotted Daniel.

"_Just got here,"_ Daniel fibbed.

"_Oh, good…not that there was anything going on before you did,"_ Naruto said.

"_Of course not, Uzumaki-san,"_ Daniel agreed with as straight a face as he could manage.

"_Sooo…how long was I out, uh…Danyeel Jack…Jacksin, right?"_ Naruto asked, trying to remember the strange sounding name from the first time he woke up.

Daniel checked his watch, _"About six hours and close, my name is Daniel Jackson. You can call me Daniel. That's my first name. We say the family name last here." _

"_Cool. You can call me Naruto. You don't have to bother with the '-san' or anything, either."_ Naruto couldn't remember if he'd told him his name earlier. Maybe Hinata had told Daniel while he was asleep.

"_Before I forget, Dr. Fraiser, the woman you met before the…uh, incident, wants to ask you a few questions," _Daniel added as casually as possible.

"_Is there something wrong?"_ He was slightly nervous, having figured out in the brief time he was awake the first time that the woman he met was some kind of medical-ninja, or at least the non-shinobi equivalent.

"_No, there's nothing wrong. Quiet the opposite actually. When you first arrived, she didn't expect you to wake up as soon as you did or heal at the rate you have been. She's curious about how you managed it,"_Daniel answered, deliberately down playing the doctor's interest. It actuality, Dr. Fraiser is way beyond curious. She had been very alarmed when Naruto's wounds started healing at a rate on par with that of a Goa'uld. In fact, it was so close to a Goa'uld's ability that Dr, Fraiser had felt compelled to use the portable X-ray machine just to make sure he wasn't a Goa'uld using some kind of symbiote-masking drug.

Naruto shrugged. _"I'm a fast healer. Always have been. I'm usually out of the hospital in less than two days, no matter how badly I'm injured. Not that that ever stops Granny from trying to keep me there for longer."_

"_Your grandmother?" _Daniel asked. He was tempted to press Naruto on the healing issue but held back in favor of building a better rapport and hopefully learning more about the two teens.

Naruto shook his head and smiled. _"No. Granny is just a nickname I call the Hokage, the leader of the village Hinata and I live in. She's supposedly one of the best medical-ninjas that ever lived, too. I just call her that because she's kind of vain and tries to hide how old she is with some kind of weird henge. Most everyone else calls her Tsunade-hime or Hokage-sama. Sakura-chan, who's my teammate and Granny's apprentice, says I'm probably the only one who can get away with calling her Granny."_

"_Henge? Medical-ninja?_" Daniel asked.

"_A medical ninja is what is sounds like, a ninja who specializes in healing jutsu, and a henge is a very basic transformation ninjutsu."_ Naruto did the hand signs for the jutsu and transformed into Daniel._ "See, a henge. Maybe you call it something else here."_

"_Wow! I've never seen anything like that. How did you do it?"_ Daniel asked in shock, still managing to somehow keep his voice low enough to avoid waking Hinata. He reached out and touched Naruto/his double's forehead and was surprised to see that it was solid and not some kind of hologram or illusion like he expected. _"That's simply amazing." _

"_What, do you not have shinobi here or something? I thought everybody had heard of a henge,"_ Naruto answered after releasing the jutsu. He was confused by such a strong reaction to something that, to him at least, was an everyday thing.

"_Not that I know of. Japanese history was never one of my fields of study, but ninjas, at least in the historical sense, haven't existed here for hundreds of years. I mean, there are still people who study the martial art of ninjutsu, but there are not real ninjas who work as professional warriors. Not to mention, I have never heard of anyone being able to do anything like what you just did,"_ Daniel answered.

"_Weird. I've traveled a lot, and I've never been anywhere were they didn't know what a jutsu was before. Where did you say we were again?"_ Naruto replied.

"_Oh, I mentioned Japan, but that's not where we are. You're currently in the United States of America, both it and Japan are nations on a planet called Earth," _Daniel explained.

"_Never heard of either of those places,"_ Naruto answered with a perplexed look on his face. _"Anyway, I'm from Konohagakure no Sato and it's…wait a second…did you say, 'a __planet__ called Earth'?"_

Daniel took a deep breath. He always hated this part. There really wasn't an easy way to tell someone. _"Yeah. About that…"_

* * *

**"NANI!!"** a very loud shout echoed through the underground passages of Stargate Command.

"What the hell was that?" O'Neill asked.

"'What,' sir," the young Japanese-American woman walking with the three members of SG-1 toward the infirmary answered.

"Uh, the banshee shriek that just threatened to make my ears bleed. What else would I be talking about, Captain?" O'Neill replied in annoyance.

"Sorry, sir. I should have been clearer. I meant to say that 'Nani' is the Japanese word for 'what,'" Captain Miura tried to explain.

"How the hell should I know what that means? You're the one who speaks the language," O'Neill shot back.

"Colonel…"

"Captain, just let it go. You're not going to win this one," Major Carter counseled.

"Indeed," Teal'c added. "Colonel O'Neill responded similarly when he first heard the name of the system lord, Yu. It took quiet some time for Daniel Jackson, Major Carter, and myself to make him understand that Yu was not 'you.'"

"Liar! I just met her, so I couldn't possibly have thought Miura was a system lord back then," O'Neill said, this time obviously in jest.

"Not that understanding necessarily makes the Colonel stop," Sam groaned as they reached the infirmary.

Once inside, the group saw Daniel trying to simultaneously calm Naruto down, keep him from climbing out of bed, and wave off the two guards who had come running into the room. Dr. Fraiser, who had also come running when she heard Naruto's shout, was helping Hinata up from the floor where the teen had fallen from her chair when she was startled from her sleep.

"What'd we miss?" O'Neill asked.

Daniel turned to him and said, "Jack..."

"_ANSWER ME! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T SEND US HOME?!" _Naruto loudly interrupted. The frustration he felt at the realization that he had just lost his best opportunity yet to bring Sasuke back was threatening to get the better of him. He needed to be back home to help Sakura-chan and Kakashi-sensei…and what about fighting Akatsuki, the Chuunin Exams, and becoming Hokage? Damn it, he didn't have time for this. As his emotions built, Naruto's eyes changed from their normal blue color to red and his pupils turned into cat-like slits. To everyone else in the room it suddenly felt like some invisible, malevolent force was pressing against them. The two SFs instinctively started to move their hands to the zats they had clipped to their belts, only to stop a moment later when Colonel O'Neill turned and shook his head at them.

"_I didn't say we couldn't get you home eventually, but there are Stargates located on hundreds, if not thousands, of worlds scattered across this galaxy. Without a gate address there is no way of knowing which one is your world," _Daniel explained nervously, having noticed Naruto's eyes and felt the strange energy that coursed through the room. _"We'll do everything we can to help you, but you need to understand we can't make any guarantees. It could take a long time, and you need to be prepared for the possibility that we may never find the world you came from. I'm sorry."_

Naruto appeared ready to argue with Daniel, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking over he saw Hinata, who appeared on the verge of tears. _"P-please, N-naruto-kun, don't be mad. It's all my fault! I'm so s-sorry!"_

"_Huh? What are you talking about, Hinata?"_ Naruto's eyes returned to their normal color and the oppressive force dissipated as his anger and frustration turned to concern and confusion.

Hinata tried to lean her head forward to hide the fact that she was crying behind her long bangs. She didn't want Naruto to see her upset. She wanted him to see her as a strong kunoichi worthy of his respect…and maybe one day his love. She'd worked so hard to improve herself and become strong. She'd become a chuunin and gained the respect of the other Leaf shinobi as a capable and dependable ally. Even her father had acknowledged that she was improving, although he still seemed to favor her little sister. But at the moment, none of her accomplishments over the last three years seemed to matter. When it had really mattered and her most precious person was counting on her, she hadn't been strong enough. Her hard won confidence was beginning to crumble, and she once again felt like the scared little twelve-year-old girl who use to run and hide because she was ashamed of her constant failures.

Naruto could see her tears dripping to the floor below. He started to reach for her but hesitated. He was afraid that if he touched Hinata, he'd somehow offend her or make things worse. He watched as Hinata tried to reign in her emotions, but then heard her let out a pitiful sound that was midway between a sob and a whimper. He couldn't bear seeing her so upset any longer. Sam and Dr. Fraiser had started to move toward the crying girl to comfort her, but Naruto beat them to it. He reached out and pulled Hinata into a hug, forcing her to sit down next to him on the bed in the process. She let out a surprised squeak, but then wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. Naruto felt hot tears begin to soak through the fabric of his hospital gown when she stopped trying to hold it in.

He glanced up and saw Dr. Fraiser looking on with a sympathetic expression. Giving her a pleading expression, Naruto jerked his head in a motion he hoped she would interpret as a request to be alone for a few minutes. Correctly guessing what he wanted, she motioned for the others to follow her to her office a short distance away. Teal'c gave the two teens a respectful nod in passing. Sam flashed Naruto an approving smile and moved the box of tissues from a nearby table to the bed where he could reach it before joining the others.

"_I guess you're having a bad day, huh, Hinata?"_ Naruto said, feeling guilty that he'd been worried about his own problems when one of his friends was in the same boat.

Hinata nodded and sobbed something unintelligible into his shoulder.

After a few minutes of Naruto holding her and rubbing her back, Hinata pulled away and sat up, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Naruto passed her a handful of tissues. She made a surprisingly loud honking noise that sounded remarkably like a foghorn when she blew her nose, which coming from the shy and always lady-like Hinata, Naruto found particularly funny. He somehow managed to limit his reaction to an amused smile. The last thing he wanted to do was make Hinata think he was making fun of her.

"_So what exactly do you think is your fault?"_

"_I-it's because of me…th-that you were injured and we can't get home,"_ Hinata quietly answered._ "If I h-had been stronger, they w-wouldn't have captured me and you wouldn't have l-lost your chance to find Sasuke. Y-y-you should have just let them t-take me. I'm weak and useless…"_

"_Bullshit."_

"_W-wh-what?"_

"_You heard me,"_ Naruto said. _"I said bullshit. It's not your fault that I got hurt or that we can't get home. It's the fault of those bastards that attacked that town and killed those people."_

"_B…but I…"_

"_But nothing,"_Naruto cut Hinata off._ "They managed to get you with a cheap shot, that's all. It could just as easily happened to me or Yamato-sensei. It was a hundred verses three, and those guys were a lot stronger than we thought they'd be. Odds were they'd get at least one lucky shot in on one of us."_

"_Naruto-kun, I was captured because I was almost out of chakra and let my guard down. It wasn't just luck. I couldn't last as long as you or Yamato-sensei, and I put both of you in danger because of it,"_ Hinata said.

"_No you didn't, and so what if you ran out of chakra before Yamato-sensei and me. He's an ANBU __captain,__ and I kinda have an unfair advantage in the chakra department. Kakashi-sensei is always going on about how I have bigger chakra reserves than him even without 'fuzzy' here, and he's one of the strongest jonin in the village,"_ Naruto said while patting his stomach. _"You've got nothing to be ashamed of. I mean you're plenty strong even if your chakra reserves aren't big as mine. You developed your own ultimate defense and Gentle Fist style, didn't you? You're also way better at chakra control than me. I still have trouble with making a regular bushin, sometimes."_

Hinata nodded, she knew he was right. She had worked very hard to develop her Shugo Hakke Rokujyuyonshou. Even Neji had been impressed the first time she showed him the technique. She didn't think her chakra control was anything special, but then again she came a clan where excellent chakra control was the norm, not the exception. And while Hinata was proud of the unique Gentle Fist style she had created, the only reason she had developed it was because she couldn't seem to master the style of Gentle Fist her father and cousin had tried to teach her. Her style wasn't necessarily an improvement in her eyes; it merely worked better for her than the traditional style.

"_And you are definitely not weak or useless. Hell, you saved my life at least three times before I left Konoha to train with Ero-sennin, and you were kicking some serious butt during that last fight before you got knocked out."_

Hinata began to feel better as Naruto reminded her what was good about herself.

"_Oh, and one more thing,"_ Naruto said now that he was on a roll,_ "I am definitely calling bullshit on the idea that I should have done nothing to stop them from taking you. We're Konoha shinobi, we don't abandon our comrades. Besides, I wouldn't deserve to be Hokage if I was willing to let someone kidnap one of my precious people without a fight."_

At hearing Naruto call her one of his 'precious people', Hinata blushed and started nervously pushing two of her fingers together. A small, embarrassed smile was beginning to form on her face.

'She's so cute when she does that…AKK! Damn it, I'm doing it again! I've got to get my head on straight. Hinata is my friend, I can't go all Ero-sennin on her, especially now.'

"_You really consider me one of your precious people, Naruto-kun?"_ Hinata asked without stuttering. She was precious…to Naruto-kun? It was more than she could have hoped for.

"_Well, yeah…I do. I use to think you were weird, but once I got a chance to know you a little better I found out you were really cool. You're always so nice to everyone, and you're always there for your friends. I mean…take the time you helped me get my confidence back when we ran into each other at the training posts before my fight with Neji. You knew exactly what to say to make me feel better. And when he closed off my chakra points, it was remembering how you and Lee wouldn't give up during the preliminaries that gave me the strength to get back up. If it wasn't for that talk and you and Lee inspiring me, Neji probably would have won,"_ Naruto confessed. It really had been that close.

"_No! You're Naruto-kun! You would have found a way! Even when everyone treated you so badly and you were struggling, you never gave up!"_ Hinata exclaimed in disbelief.

Naruto's head jerked back in surprise at her outburst. Then he smiled. _"See, that's what I'm talking about. You believe in your friends, even when they don't believe in themselves. You're strong where it counts most…here,"_ Naruto said, gently touching two of his fingers to a spot right over Hinata's heart.

She quickly ducked her head to hide her blushing. If Hinata hadn't looked away, she would have noticed Naruto's own blush. Instead all she saw was his quickly retreating hand.

"_T-that's why you're one of my precious people,"_ Naruto said in a slightly shaky voice.

"_Thank you, Naruto-kun."_

"_Hey, what are friends for? Besides, look on the bright side. We can pretend we're on vacation together, or something, until we find a way home. We could even work on that fainting problem of yours. As often as you seem to faint, I'm surprised Kurenai-sensei doesn't make you wear a helmet."_ Naruto awkwardly joked in an effort to relieve the tension. Hinata looked up at her crush's face, not sure how to take his last comment. Naruto flashed her an affectionate, almost flirty smile to let her know he was only being playful by teasing her. That was the final straw it took to derail the emotional roller coaster Hinata had been on the whole day. Her vision started to turn black around the edges, and she felt herself falling forward toward Naruto's chest. Caught off guard, his injured abdominal muscles couldn't support their combined weight, and he was knocked out of his sitting position onto his back. He let out a loud gasp of air when the now unconscious Hinata landed diagonally across his chest, knocking the wind out of him.

When Naruto was once again able to breath normally, he realized he had a new problem. Thankfully, she hadn't landed on his broken ribs or his wounded side, but when he tried to sit up his stomach muscles gave out before his shoulder got more than a couple of inches off the mattress. He tried to use his left arm to help lift them up, but he couldn't put any weight on it with causing pain to his broken ribs. When he tried use his right arm to do the same thing, Hinata almost fell off the bed and he felt the a pain tearing through his injured side when he barely managed to keep her from falling by grabbing her with his left hand. Naruto looked down and noticed a small red place where blood had soaked through his fresh bandages and sighed. If he kept this up, he was going to reopen his wound, and then he'd have to listen to Daniel relay a lecture from the lady in the white coat. 'Two chewing outs for the price of one.' Deciding to give it one last try, Naruto attempted to scoot Hinata into a different position so he could lift them up without knocking her off the bed. Unfortunately, all he managed to accomplish was accidentally getting a mouthful of her hair, which caused him to spit and sputter.

Now resigned to wait for someone to come back and rescue them, Naruto lay in bed with his face turning increasingly redder due to his growing, among other things, awareness, that: A) Hinata's braless boobs were currently mashed against his chest, B) He was pretty much naked except for a paper-thin hospital gown, and C) Despite his embarrassment, he was enjoying his present predicament a little too much for his good conscience. Naruto glared up at the ceiling of the infirmary and shot the bird at whichever kami was having so much fun at his expense._"Why the hell aren't the bastard fox, the emo missing-nin best friend, the group of power hungry psychos who like to wear nail polish, and trapping Hinata and me on another planet enough for you? Quit trying to turn me into a mini Ero-sennin too, you bastard!"_

Naruto tried to bunch up the blanket between Hinata and his crotch, so she wouldn't notice his 'condition' when she woke up. 'I hope someone comes back soon before Hinata wakes up and screams at me for being a pervert. I don't want her to quit talking to me. If she does, the only person I'd have left who can understand what I say is that dorky guy with the glasses.'

* * *

Daniel let out a loud sneeze.

"Bless you!"

"Sorry, allergies," Daniel said with a sniffle before blowing his nose. He leaned forward to peer out the door of Dr. Fraiser's office but could only make out Naruto's feet moving under the covers of the hospital bed. "Maybe I should go check on them? They've been talking for a while now."

"Quit acting like a mother hen, Daniel. I'm sure one of them will let us know when they're done," Colonel O'Neill said. "What were you trying to say, Carter?"

"I just asked if I was the only one who felt that when his eyes changed?"

"You were not," Teal'c answered. "It was most…disconcerting."

"When his eyes changed?" O'Neill asked. Daniel had been blocking his view of Naruto's head, and he'd missed the brief change in the teen's eyes.

"They turned red, and the pupils kind of elongated. It almost looked like a cat's eyes, Sir," Captain Miura answered, speaking for the first time since arriving at the infirmary.

Daniel looked up apparently noticing her for the first time. She was around Sam's height but a little slimmer in build. Her short, black hair hung down almost to her shirt collar. She had obviously just arrived at the SGC as she still dressed the dark blue skirt and jacket of her Class A uniform instead of the fatigues or jumpsuits most of the base personnel normally wore while working. "…And you are?"

"Captain Rachel Miura," she said while reaching out to shake Daniel's hand. "I'm normally an engineer on the F-302 program at Area 51, but I was ordered to report here for temporary duty as an interpreter. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself earlier."

"Dr. Daniel Jackson," Daniel replied. "And wow. You got here fast. I only made the request for someone fluent in Japanese two hours ago. I guess you were the only one they could find with the proper clearance on short notice." He'd been hoping for a trained linguist, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Yes, Sir. They gave me thirty minutes to pack, and had a Gulfstream waiting on the tarmac."

"That's probably my fault, too. I said it was urgent," Daniel grimaced. He'd momentarily forgotten how seriously 'urgent' requests from the SGC tended to be taken.

"It's okay, it wouldn't be the first time I've been roped into acting as an interpreter. Although, the last time was for a Japanese general visiting the Pentagon, and not you know…"

"Teenage alien ninjas with weird eyes," Colonel O'Neill offered.

"Um, yes, Sir."

"Sir, what are you going to recommend to General Hammond?" Sam asked.

"What do you guys think?" O'Neill asked.

"I don't think he lied to me or anything, but Naruto never did answer how he's able to heal so fast," Daniel answered.

"Maybe he has a kinky gecko thing like the girl…" O'Neill started.

"Kekkei genkai," Daniel corrected.

"Yeah…one of those, and is just nervous about telling us about it?" O'Neill finished without missing a beat

"It's possible. Like I said, I don't think he lied, but he did seem to avoid answering the question. It just bothered me because he was so open about everything else," Daniel reiterated. "Of course, if you look at it from their point of view it's not too surprising. They encountered people from another planet for the first time, today. Had to fight those same people. Were taken to another world and then rescued by people from a second world and taken here. I'd be a little wary of trusting us completely too. To be honest, I'm surprised they've said as much as they have."

"Carter?"

"I agree. I don't see any reason to doubt them. I haven't spent any time around Naruto yet, but Hinata seems to be an absolute sweetheart. Plus, isn't this discussion kind of moot since we don't know the gate address for their home planet, Sir?"

"Eh, good point," O'Neill responded. "We are kind of stuck with them, aren't we?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but yes, Sir," Carter responded.

"Shouldn't we be looking at this as an opportunity to make some new allies?" Daniel asked.

O'Neill perked up at Daniel's way of reframing the discussion, "I like it! Ninjas would be a definite upgrade from the Tok'ra…no offense to your dad, Carter."

* * *

**Naruto and Hinata's World: Konoha**

"I didn't think you'd bring your daughter with you," Ibiki said as he walked down the steps to the holding facility located underneath ANBU headquarters. Behind him walked Inoichi and Ino Yamanaka.

"She needs to gain experience doing the jutsu on real, resisting targets at some point. Now is as good a time as any," Inoichi replied. "At least this way, I can bail her out of trouble if something goes wrong."

"True enough," Ibiki grunted. "How long do you think it'll take to find anything of value?"

"More than likely, it will take several secessions before we can piece together anything useful. Most people think in the same language they speak, so Ino and I won't be able to understand his thoughts or anything said to him in his memories. We will however be able to see what he's seen," Inoichi replied thoughtfully. "Do you have Anko preping the prisoners like I requested?"

"That crazy woman from the Chuunin Exam! Why her?" Ino exclaimed.

Her father sighed and shook his head. "Ino, rule forty-three," Inoichi said in his best sensei voice.

Ino groaned in annoyance before robotically repeating one of the rules she memorized during her clan's jutsu training, "The Yamanaka clan mind jutsu are most effective when the intended target's mental defenses have been weakened by anxiety or some other form of emotional stress. Come on, Dad! I already memorized all these! You can stop quizzing me on them every five minutes, already!"

"Well that certainly explains why you requested Anko, Inoichi. If there's one thing she excels at it's making people nervous. Something I'm sure your daughter can attest to from first-hand experience by the sound of it," Ibiki added with a chuckle while opening the door to the interrogation room.

Inside the room a man with a tattoo on his forehead quivered in terror as a massive thirty-foot long python squeezed him in its coils while staring directly into his eyes. Overseeing the scene was Anko, who wore an amused look on her face while she twirled a kunai by the ring on its handle around her finger.

"Ophidiophobia?" Inoichi asked.

"Oh, yeah…big time," Anko laughed before walking up to the snake and scratching it affectionately under the chin. "The bad man doesn't appreciate you like I do. Does he, precious?"

"No, Mistresssssss," the snake summon hissed while slightly tightening its coils. "Maybe I ssshould jussst eat him?" The reptile positioned its head above the Jaffa and unhinged its jaw as if it was preparing to swallow him whole.

The Jaffa warrior stared up into the gaping mouth of the massive serpent in horror before losing control of his bladder.

Ino scrunched up her face in disgust. "Eww."

Anko merely glanced down at the newly formed puddle on the concrete floor with a satisfied smile before turning back to the three new arrivals. "Well, I think my work here is done. The prisoner is all yours." She patted the snake on the side of its body. "You're free to go after Inoichi-kun gets started, Ochi-chan."

The purple-haired special jonin turned to leave after the snake summon nodded its head slightly in understanding. As she passed Ino on her way out, Anko leaned in and said in a conspiratorial tone loud enough for the others to hear, "I warmed him up for your first time, Blondie. Have fun popping your cherry."

Ino's jaw dropped in an amazing imitation of Ochi-chan in response to the older kunoichi's gall.

Anko smirked at the teen before continuing on her way. Once she got to the doorway, she paused, rubbed her hands together in anticipation, and then shouted down the hallway, "OKAY BOYS! WHO'S NEXT?"

A number of groans and what could only have been curses rang out from various cells in response to the sound of their tormentor's voice.

"OH, COME ON GUYS! YOU KNOW YOU LOVE ME!" Anko shouted as Ibiki closed the door behind her.

* * *

At the main gate to the village, two shinobi and a large dog ambushed Kakashi before he could depart on his mission to find Jiraiya.

"You're not leaving without us," Kiba stubbornly stated while blocking the masked jonin's path.

"Kiba, Shino, I really don't have time for this. Jiraiya-sama is on his way to the Land of Rain, and I have to track him down before he reaches the border," Kakashi said.

"We're going with you, and that's final. Shino says Jiraiya is the best chance we have to find out where Hinata and Naruto disappeared to, since both he and Naruto can summon frogs."

Kakashi was about to push his way past them when Shino spoke up, "Did you not recruit us for the original mission because of our skill as trackers. We can help you find Jiraiya-sama much faster than you would be able to alone."

"Actually, I didn't recruit you. Hinata volunteered your team for the mission," Kakashi said. He was pleased by the surprised look that appeared on Kiba's face and the raised eyebrows showing over Shino's glasses. "That doesn't change the fact that you happen to be right. You can come. However, I'm not going to slow down if you can't keep up, and this is a S-ranked mission so you will follow my orders without question."

"Why the hell would tracking down a dirty old man who happens to be an ally be a S-ranked mission?" Kiba sputtered.

"Jiraiya's on a recon mission to the likely hideout of the leader of Akatsuki," Kakashi said before walking past them. Both Kiba and Shino froze at that piece of information "One more thing you should consider; if you join me on this mission, you will doing so without orders and will therefore be breaking the rules. There could be serious consequences when you return to Konoha...assuming you make it back alive, that is."

Kiba, Shino, and Akamaru stared at Kakashi's retreating back for a moment before running to catch up. "Come on let's hurry and find Jiraiya so we can get Hinata and that blonde idiot back before he does something stupider than he already has," Kiba said as he and Akamaru passed Kakashi.

Unbeknownst to the male half of Team 8, Kakashi couldn't have been prouder of them. They weren't lower than trash.

* * *

**********Author's Note: **

**********Hi, everyone. Sorry for the long delay in updating, but sometimes life takes precedence over writing fan fiction. I'll try not to make you wait so long for the next chapter.**

**********I have three items of news to cover. The first item is anonymous reviews have been disabled. I know that's an inconvenience for some of you, and I apologize. Unfortunately, a couple of people have abused the privilege, and disabling them seems to be the only way to prevent a repeat of the problem.**

**********The second item is plagiarism. Someone has seen fit to copy the entire first chapter of my other story, **_**Faith of the Heart**_**, word-for-word and post it as their own. I'm talking literally "copy and pasting" the chapter, author's notes and all, and not just paraphrasing my writing. Just for the record, don't do something like that without my permission. I will find out, and I will make it your problem. I don't mind people getting ideas and inspiration from my writing to use in their ****own original stories****. That is what all fan fiction writers do with the canon media, after all. However, if you're too lazy to write your own story don't try to steal someone else's work and pass it off as something you authored. I thought that was a no-brainer, but apparently I was wrong.**

**********The final piece of news is I want to say WOW. 74 reviews for Chapter 1 of **_**Shinobi Odyssey**_** as of the time I posted Chapter 2. That's amazing. You guys and gals are awesome. Thank you to each and every one of you, who read, reviewed, faved, or put me on their alerts. You are what make sharing my work worthwhile.**


	3. Chapter 3: Interesting Times

**Shinobi Odyssey**

* * *

"Normal speech."

"_Speaking in a foreign language."_

**Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto and all the characters from the anime and manga. The Stargate franchise is owned by MGM.**

**Please do not reproduce this story without the permission of the author, huntsvilletiger. Plagiarizers will be locked in a closet with a bag of rabid attack squirrels and forced to listen to a looped-recording of the 'Barney Song.'**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Interesting Times are a Coming**

**Earth - SGC**

"Hi, Daniel," Sam said as she and O'Neill sat down across the table from him in the commissary. Daniel, whose mouth was full of food, nodded and smiled at them.

After Daniel finished swallowing, O'Neill asked "How's it going with Hinata," he looked to Sam who nodded to let him he got the first name right, "and…wait…don't tell me…umm, what's his name, the one with the Lisa Simpson hairdo…got it! Naruto, right?"

Daniel flashed an uncharacteristically broad, if somewhat nervous, grin and gave O'Neill a big thumbs up. It was at this point both O'Neill and Sam noticed the overloaded tray of food that looked suspiciously as if Daniel had gone down the cafeteria line grabbing one of everything. "Hungry are we?"

Daniel merely smiled at them again before nervously ducking his head back down and taking another bite of his cake.

Sam was about to ask if he was feeling okay when a second Daniel walked into the commissary reading from a three ring binder. The second Daniel spotted O'Neill and Carter, but not the first Daniel whose back was to him. "Hey, Jack, Sam, I was just reading over SG-4's report from…uh, is something wrong." Sam and O'Neill, along with the rest of the commissary, were looking wide-eyed back and forth between the two Daniels. The room went dead silent except for the ping of O'Neill's dropped spoon hitting the table.

The second Daniel did a double take when he finally noticed the first seated at the table. The first Daniel swallowed the food in his mouth and then vanished in a puff of smoke, revealing an embarrassed looking Naruto dressed in a black t-shirt and orange pants. _"Sorry…I know I was supposed to stay in bed, but I was reeaaalllyyy hungry. Hey, this is probably a bad time to ask, but is there any chance they serve ramen here?"_

O'Neill let out a relieved breath of air before slumping down in his chair. "Oh, thank God! Kid, don't ever scare me like that again! One of him is more than enough!"

With the exception of an annoyed glance, Daniel chose to ignore the comment in favor of asking Naruto a question. _"If you're here, who was that asleep in your bed when I stopped by the infirmary a couple minutes ago?"_

Naruto was about to answer when he suddenly froze except for his eyes, which shot open wide in fear. He blurted out something in rapid fire Japanese and started looking around the commissary in a panic before zeroing in on a brown-haired airman sitting at another table. Naruto henged himself to look like the airman, shoveled a last couple of forkfuls of chocolate cake into his mouth, took a quick gulp of his milk, and then bolted out the door of the commissary before anyone could think to stop him.

O'Neill looked up at Daniel "What'd he just say?"

"I think he said, 'Oh, shit. I'm screwed. She tried to put the IV back in the clone.'"

A minute later, the sound of running feet and a woman's angry sounding voice could be heard coming from down the hallway.

"Is that Janet?" Sam asked; only to have her question answered a moment later when a frazzled looking Dr. Fraiser burst into the commissary with two SFs on her heels.

"Which way did he go?" She growled. Everyone in the room pointed in the direction she had just come from. "He looks like me," the brown-haired airman added helpfully. Dr. Fraiser and the SFs ran back in the direction of the infirmary.

"Why do I get the feeling the times are about to get a lot more interesting around here?" O'Neill asked rhetorically.

"Jack, you realize the Chinese consider that a curse, don't you?" Daniel asked.

"I know. I'm just saying."

* * *

**Naruto's World**

Ino laughed with the man and woman holding onto her hands when they lifted her up and over the mud puddle. She could feel herself grinning ear-to-ear when her feet touched the ground. The man asked her something, and she looked up at his face and nodded excitedly. The face looking back at her was strikingly similar to her father's: steely blue eyes that held unexpected warmth; a strong, chiseled chin; the same dirty blond hair, minus her dad's ponytail; and a relaxed, yet confidant smile. The only glaring difference was the tattoo on the man's forehead where her father's leaf forehead protector should have resided.

Ino turned her head to look up at the woman, hopeful…no, seeking permission. That was the feeling. The woman's dark brown hair and eyes and tanned complexion stood in stark contrast to the man's fairer features, yet the same warmth and parental affection was visible in her eyes. The woman brought a curled finger to the edge of her mouth and adopted a thoughtful expression. Ino could see the barely concealed smile. The woman was teasing her by making her wait. Just as Ino was starting to get annoyed, the woman laughed and nodded her head.

They turned toward a booth a short distance away. Ino realized they were at some kind of festival, much like the Hokage's Day festival she went to with her own family every year. Brightly colored banners hung from buildings and between poles. Families strolled together down the stone paved streets. Groups of children played games at some of the booths. The wonderful smell of something baking wafted through the air the closer they got to their destination.

The man… no, father, holding her hand spoke to an older woman behind the counter who smiled and handed over some kind of pastry wrapped in crinkled white paper. The father passed the warm dessert to Ino and ruffled her hair. She took a bite, savoring the taste of gooey, sweet fruit filling and flakey, buttery bread the way only a child enjoying an unexpected treat can. A shop door a few feet away opened, and Ino saw the reflection of a boy seven or eight years old with light brown hair and a tattoo on his forehead like his parents' in the glass staring back at her. A small spot of the sticky filling was smeared on his face near the corner of his mouth. Ino reached up and wiped the mess off her face with the edge of the pastry wrapper, the boy in the reflection mirroring her every move.

Ino returned to the man's mindscape, still feeling the contentment and happiness of the last memory as she searched for the next one. She had allowed herself to spend too much time in the memory of the festival, despite its irrelevance to her mission, but after searching the minds of four other prisoners that day and experiencing some things she would quite frankly rather forget, she felt entitled. Besides, she might have been able to glean something useful from even such an innocent memory. What she and her father were doing really was like piecing together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Even a seemingly insignificant tidbit of information might turn out to be the one key piece that allowed them to figure out how all the others fit into the completed process.

Spotting another point of light nearby that signified a vivid memory, Ino's disembodied mind floated toward it. She reached out and touched the glowing orb and felt the familiar rushing sensation of her consciousness integrating itself into the memory. This time she felt an overwhelming sensation of fear and dread wash over her. She was no longer a child, but a full-grown man. Before her, she recognized the same woman and man from before, the parents of the man whose mind she was exploring. Their features were surprisingly untouched by the years Ino knew must have passed between the two memories.

The father was kneeling before her. Dried blood was on his forehead, and a nasty bruise marred his left cheek. Two men in chain mail and plate armor stood to either side of the father tightly gripping his arms and shoulders to hold him in place. A strange sounding voice caused her to look up at a man dressed in golden armor. He glared back at her. His eyes glowed with an unnatural light that filled her with panic. She jerked her head back first to the father, then the mother, before the kneeling man yelled at her. Their eyes met; there was a pleading, overwrought expression on his face. He was begging, yet for some reason Ino felt herself freeze, unable to do whatever it was he wanted. She looked to the mother who had tears streaming down her face. Ino choked down the bile rising in her throat when she realized what was about to happen. Against her will, the body she was watching the scene through started to lower the staff. Another armor wearing man leveled an identical staff at the mother. The bulbous end of both weapons split open into four segments with electricity arcing between them.

Ino didn't have to understand what was being said to recognize the threat. Her arms hesitantly pointed her own staff at the father. Her hands were shaking. Ino tried desperately to stop the man whose eyes she was looking through from doing what he was about to do. Unable to resist, she felt her/his finger squeeze down on the triggering mechanism. A bolt of energy shot toward the face of the kneeling man. An image of Ino's own father's face replaced her victim's in the brief instant before his head exploded. The dark haired woman let loose an anguished wail before collapsing to the floor sobbing. Ino felt grief-driven hatred rise when she heard the man in the golden armor chuckling at her and the woman's pain. He kicked the headless body and looked at her with an approving smile beginning to curl the edges of his mouth upward.

She felt something warm stuck near the corner of her mouth that felt eerily like the glob of pastry filling from the festival. She wiped the spot off with her hand. When she looked down, she saw it was a piece of blood soaked brain tissue. The whole front of the suit of armor she wore was splattered with blood, shards of skull, and brains. Ino closed her eyes and heard a scream. When she reopened them, she was on the floor of one of the basement holding cells in ANBU headquarters and her real father was shaking her. Her breathing came in ragged gasps, and she realized she had been the one screaming in terror. Ino looked into her father's worried eyes and felt vomit rising. Clutching a hand over her mouth, she tore out of the cell and ran down the hall to the restroom making it just in time before she threw up.

When her stomach was finally empty and she stopped dry heaving, Ino pulled the handle and watched as the mixture of vomit and water circled the bowl before disappearing.

"You done, Blondie?"

Ino turned her head and was surprised to see Anko crouching down next to her holding her long ponytail back so it wouldn't fall into the toilet. She hadn't even realized the other woman had followed her. Instead of the expected smirk, a look of genuine concern was on the older konoichi's face. Not trusting her voice, or her stomach, Ino simply nodded before slumping down against the tiled wall next to the toilet. The cold surface provided a welcome, soothing distraction from her now passing nausea, even if the hard restroom floor wasn't exactly the most comfortable or cleanest place to be sitting

Ino shuttered. It had felt so real, like it was actually her living that moment. She could almost taste the pastry in her mouth at the festival and could swear she had felt the blood that had splattered on her face. She rubbed her cheek and panicked for a moment when she felt something wet, only to let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding when she looked at her fingers and saw it was only her own sweat not more blood and gore. Gods, she was mad at how pathetic she felt! When she heard about the prisoners, she thought she could finally do something that would make a difference. She knew it wouldn't be easy, that there was a good chance she would see some disturbing things, but right now she was totally freaked out. She held a hand in front of her face, and noticed she couldn't stop it from shaking. She stared off into space, caught up in her own inner turmoil. "I-I don't know if I can still do this," she said as much to herself as the other occupant of the room.

Anko frowned. This wasn't like the confident, bossy girl she remembered from the Chunnin Exams and the stories her father, Inoichi, told during the regular jonin get-togethers. She needed to snap the brat out of this crap quick. Anko stood and extended her hand to Ino. "Come with me." Ino stared blankly at the outstretched hand. Anko huffed. "On your feet, Blondie, I don't have all night."

Ino tentatively reached up and grabbed onto the older woman's hand allowing Anko to pull her to her feet. She barely noticed being dragged through ANBU headquarters, only stopping long enough for Anko to lean into the holding cell and yell something at her father. When they got outside, the cold night roused Ino enough to start paying more attention to her surroundings. She hadn't realized how late it was. It was easy to lose track of time when performing a mind-reading jutsu. She noticed Anko was headed right for Ryusaki's, the bar her and her teammates' dads frequented. Ino paused when they reached the door.

"I'm barely sixteen. Isn't it illegal for me to go in here?"

Anko flashed a grin that reminded Ino a little too much of Naruto back in his practical joking prime at the academy. "Nah, it's okay. The law only says you're too young to be served alcohol in a bar. It doesn't say anything about going inside. Besides, they serve food here, too. Ryusaki's has the best dango in Konoha."

Ino still didn't completely trust Anko's intentions, but she had skipped lunch and was starting to feel hungry now that her stomach had settled down. "Okay, I guess. I am kind of hungry."

Anko pulled the girl inside. She ignored the waitress who tried to seat them at a table and led the way to a booth tucked away in the back, making sure Ino sat where the tall planters that divided the booths from one another hid her from view. When they got settled, she made eye contact with the bartender and snapped her fingers.

The bartender, a man in his fifties, limped over. He shook his head in mock exasperation. "Anko, Anko, Anko, what I am I going to do with you? You came into my bar with the intention of corrupting another young innocent, didn't you?"

Anko laughed, "Something like that, Noda-kun." She was still smirking, but her face suddenly seemed more serious. "She's been helping her dad interrogate Ibiki's new playmates."

Noda raised an eyebrow and took a second look at Ino. "You're Inoichi's little girl, aren't you?" Still lost in her thoughts, Ino nodded without looking up. She didn't even get annoyed at being called a 'little girl' like she normally would.

Noda frowned then gave Anko a glance that let her know he understood what was going on. He'd been a shinobi too before losing his left leg below the knee during the war with Iwa.

"So what can I get for two lovely ladies like yourselves tonight?" He was fairly sure he already knew the answer but went through the motions anyways for the sake of appearances.

Anko chuckled. "So I'm a lady now, huh? First I've heard of that."

Noda shrugged. "Well, at least I've always thought so, despite your constant attempts to convince everyone otherwise. So what'll it be?"

Ino noticed that Anko's expression soften for a brief moment, and she seemed unusually touched by the comment for some reason. "We'll both have my usual. I was bragging to Blondie here earlier about how good your dango is."

"Best in town," Noda confirmed before leaving.

Five minutes later, two plates of dango, a bottle of sake, and two glasses appeared in front of them. One of the glasses was filled with water, the other empty. Anko poured the water out in the planter next to them and then filled both glasses with sake. Ino shot the older woman an accusing look. "I thought you said it was illegal to serve me alcohol?"

Anko grinned. "I did. That's why Noda-kun served me the sake and served you a glass of water." Plausible deniability was a wonderful thing. Anko raised her now filled glass and looked across the top of it at Ino. "Sake is an essential ingredient in the time honored Konoha tradition I am about to introduce you to: getting hammered with a fellow shinobi after having a shitty day."

"Drinking yourself into a stupor is a time honored Konoha tradition?"

"Look, Blon…" Anko paused for a moment, deciding this was one of those rare occasions where she actually needed to be serious and, the horror, sensitive. "Ino, if you stay in this business long enough, you're going to experience some crap that no human being should ever have to go through. I'm not saying you need to make a habit out of this, but sometimes sitting down to talk about it over a few stiff ones with a fellow shinobi helps."

"What if I don't want to?" Ino asked in a slightly defiant voice.

Oh well, sensitive was boring. "That's just tough. It's late, I'm armed, and I'm running out of places to hide the bodies. Drink your damn sake," Anko said in a deceptively sweet voice that didn't match the borderline psychotic grin she was giving the younger woman.

Ino quickly emptied her glass in one swig before Anko could even blink, causing the older woman to laugh when the teen started sputtering and coughing. "Good choice, Blondie, although I'd recommend sipping, not chugging, the next one."

* * *

Three hours later, they were on their third bottle of sake and second helping of dango. Ino had already told Anko about the strange pyramid-shaped vessels that were larger than the Hokage Tower and capable of flying, the people with glowing eyes, the strange creatures that lived in the pouch in their prisoners' stomachs, the different places the stone ring went, the battles she'd seen, and all the other crazy stuff whose meaning she could only begin to guess at before she finally got to what she'd seen in the last prisoner's memories.

"Then I saw his parents again." Ino paused for a moment. She stared down at the half empty glass in her hands, took a couple of deep breaths to steady her nerves before looking up, and continued. "I was in a room where they were being held prisoner. T-there was one of those guys with glowing eyes I told you about. H-he made me…I mean him, kill his own father. If he didn't they were going to kill his mother, too. His father looked just like my Dad. Oh kami! I could feel everything! What he felt when he did…it. The feeling of his father's brains splattering on his face, even the smell of blood…everything! W-when I did the jutsu at home everything always felt kind of distant like I was watching a movie or something, but this was beyond real. Every feeling, every sensation was ten times as strong. I couldn't tell where I ended and the memory began. For just a moment after I pulled the trigger, I-I thought…I thought I had killed my Dad. I saw his face and everything. I thought I would be able to handle anything I would see. I argued with Dad for months that I was ready for this, but when I was in that guy's mind and couldn't stop what was happening…" Ino went silent and returned to staring at her drink.

Anko looked at the teen sympathetically. "It was like reliving what happened with Asuma, wasn't it?"

Ino nodded. "When Asuma-sensei was laying there dying, I couldn't save him. I felt so helpless. It was that same feeling all over again. Someone I loved was about to die, and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it from happening."

Anko shrugged. "Wish I could tell you that part of the job got easier. This is a dangerous profession. People die all the time despite everything we do to try and prevent it. Losing someone you care about never gets easier or hurts any less, but you will get better at dealing with the pain. The important thing is to not let it scare you away from opening your heart to others or living life the way you want to."

"I know that!" Ino snapped. "After everything that's happened the last few years, I've accepted the fact there's always a chance I or someone I care about could die. I wasn't afraid of that…at least no more than I usually am. It was the not being able to do anything to help them that was the problem! Like when we went with Kakashi-sensei to fight those two Akatsuki guys. Kakashi, Shikamaru, Choji, and Naruto did almost all the fighting. I was barely able to contribute anything."

"So you thought by helping your dad with our new guests you could play the hero and save the day?"

Ino scoffed, "I know I'm not exactly the hero type. I just want to be able to do something that makes a difference instead of always feeling like deadweight. I want to be a good shinobi."

"Do you even know what it means to be a good shinobi?"

"Duh, a good shinobi is a shinobi who's a good fighter. Someone their friends can depend on when the going gets rough," Ino replied automatically.

Anko reached across the table and flicked her fingers at Ino, striking her on the nose. Ino waved drunkenly in front of her face trying to bat away Anko's hand, missing completely. "So close, yet so far, Blondie. You're an idiot, but I've known smarter people than you that couldn't figure it out. At least you got the part about being there for you friends right, so I guess you're not a total write-off."

Ino glared at Anko, who merely smiled sweetly back at her. "Knowing a lot of jutsu or being a bad-assed fighter isn't what makes someone a good shinobi. A good shinobi is one who endures and never gives up, especially when it involves their friends or family. It doesn't matter how strong you are now. What matters is that you do everything you can in the here-and-now and work on getting stronger at every opportunity. I know what you saw in that guy's head tonight freaked you out, but I promise you if you can stick this out to the end you'll be a better shinobi for it. Hell, I'll even work with you on getting stronger."

Ino blinked, surprised that she felt better after getting everything off her chest. She'd been too ashamed to talk about what her worries before, and they had been slowly eating away at her. More than that, she was touched by Anko's offer to help with her training. Going to others for help had always been difficult for her. She hated admitting she was weak or couldn't do something on her own. "Thanks, I'd like that."

Anko laughed. "We'll see if you still feel like thanking me after you go through one of my training secessions. Just make sure you show up tomorrow morning with your dad." When the bell on the front door of the bar jingled, she nodded toward it. "Speak of the devil."

Ino turned around and saw her father waiting for her just inside the front entrance. She stood somewhat unsteadily on her feet and bowed.

Anko waved her off, letting her know it wasn't necessary. Ino nodded and staggered drunkenly away in the direction of her father while gripping the brass railing that ran down the backside of the row of booths. Inoichi barely acknowledged Anko's presence before leaving with his daughter. Anko didn't mind. They'd talk about it tomorrow. Besides, she was sure he had more important things to worry about, like how to sneak a drunken teenager past his wife.

"That girl is going to have one monster of a hangover when she wakes up tomorrow," a sage sounding voice said, causing Anko to look behind her. Noda was walking up to clean the table off.

"Yup. Hopefully it'll help drive the point home."

"Speaking of, that was also some good advice you gave her. Where'd you learn something so smart?"

Anko smiled up at her stepfather, "Beats me. Maybe some old fool told me the same thing back when I was young and stupid."

Noda patted her on the shoulder. "You should think about following some of your own advice, especially the part about not giving up on family."

Anko considered telling him hell no, she wasn't going to speak to 'that woman,' but suddenly realized how hypocritical that sounded after the little speech she'd just given Ino. 'Damn, he's good.' She hated being a hypocrite. "I'll think about it."

Noda smiled at her. "That's all I ask."

Anko pulled out some cash to pay the bill. "Don't bother, I put it on Inoichi's tab just in case you decided to run out without paying."

She rolled her eyes at the barb. The man did not know how to quit when he was ahead. She knew full well he probably really did it to cover for her in case Ino's mother said something about her daughter coming home toasted at one o'clock in the morning. Besides, she always paid her bill, especially when the bartender was a retired shinobi who knew where she lived. "Gave yourself a nice big tip, did ya?"

"Of course I did, Inoichi's not a cheapskate like you," Noda smoothly countered.

"Don't you have drinks to water down or something?"

Noda shook his head in amusement at his stepdaughter. "As much fun as trading insults with you until closing would be, I have paying customers to serve, and you need to go home and get some sleep. You look like shit."

Anko stuck out her tongue but then smiled affectionately at Noda as she got up to leave. She might not be ready to forgive her mother, but she wouldn't deny the old bat had good taste in men. If anything, she wished Noda had married her mother fifteen years ago instead of five. Maybe then her bastard of a sensei would have chosen some other poor fatherless kid to manipulate instead of her.

* * *

Looking out across the city, a redheaded man dressed in the flowing robes of Akatsuki sat atop the head of a statue on the tallest tower in this part of the city. It was a city built on the blood and tears of the people of Rain, and the birthplace of the rebellion he had started.

The first people to settle on the small series of islands in the center of the great lake that lay just on the Rain side of where the borders of the Land of Fire, the Land of Rain, and the Land of Rivers met were refuges fleeing the destruction of the First Great Shinobi War. The lake and the mountains that held it provided the lucky citizens of Rain who managed to reach the islands a safe haven from the battles fought by the warring great shinobi nations down in the lowlands of their country. These first settlers named their new home Hinanjo, literally 'place of refuge.' The population slowly swelled as successive waves of refuges arrived after each new conflict tore across the Land of Rain. When the islands could no longer support the growing population, the people of Hinanjo banded together to transport rocks and dirt brought from the surrounding mountains to expand the islands and create more land to build upon.

As word of the refuge spread, the few surviving businesses of the country gradually began to relocate to Hinanjo, increasing the demand for what little space was available as the people flocked to what well on its way to becoming one of the largest villages in the poor but densely populated country.

Spotting this trend, Salamander Hanzou, the undisputed leader of not only Amegakure, but after the death of the nation's last Daimyo, all of Rain, as well, launched a massive building program. He intended for Hinanjo to become the centerpiece of his plan to rebuild the economy of the war-ravished country, an untouchable stronghold where factories could produce goods to aid in Amegakure's defense of the country and eventually where trade could again thrive when the borders were finally secure from the transgressions of their larger neighbors.

In his desire to make this dream a reality before what he believed would be a short lived peace ended, Hanzou conscripted the entire population of the village and tens of thousands of people from other parts of the country for the task. The conscripts from outside of Hinanjo had to provide their own tools and food for the forced journey made under the watchful eyes of shinobi loyal to Hanzou. Many died along the way, most often at the hands of their escorts when they tried to escape. Those left behind did not fair any better. The sudden stripping of manpower from the lowlands during the crucial planting season devastated Rain's struggling agriculture, which was based on the labor-intensive rice crop, leading to famine.

However, what was endured by the remaining people of the lowlands was nothing compared to the suffering of those toiling away expanding Hinanjo, called Hanzou-toshi during those terrible years, and mining the iron ore and stone needed to construct their leader's vision from the surrounding mountains. They labored together in gangs, chained to each other to prevent escape. They unloaded concrete, steel, and stone from massive barrages and dug in the mud with their bare hands, as few had been able to afford shovels or other tools to bring with them. Sometimes they died together when one of their number fell into the water or was snatched by one of the larger crocodiles that inhabited the lake, the heavy chains and their own exhaustion ensuring they shared their fellow conscript's fate whether it was to drown or be devoured alive in a feeding frenzy of massive reptiles. Many others died of hunger or disease. Rather than waste manpower digging graves, their bodies were thrown to the scaly predators, which seemed to grow in numbers with each passing week along with the number of dead.

The situation wasn't any better for those working in the quarries and hastily constructed foundries that sprung up around the lake to supply the raw material for the massive stone and steel-reinforced concrete pilings that would provide the foundations for the factories and towers of Hanzou-toshi. Safety equipment was none existent and the workers were poorly trained. Many were killed or maimed in accidents, their bodies either crushed by stone, burned by molten metal, or broken by the massive machinery around them. Even more died from a chronic respiratory illness caused by breathing in the gases of the nearby volcano while gathering the millions of bucket loads of ash required for use as a binding agent in cement.

Those overseeing Hanzou-toshi largely had free reign to do as they wish without consequence provided they stayed on schedule. Corruption reigned among the shinobi and officials overseeing the project, adding to the misery, as Hanzou kept their more competent colleagues close at hand where he could keep an eye on them in case any were plotting his overthrow. However, one day something unexpected happened. A team of Rain shinobi assigned to transport a shipment of medicine to the work camps to combat an outbreak of cholera were killed and their vital cargo apparently stolen.

Those sent to search for them found signs they had been ambushed. That night when the team leader's quarters were searched a notebook was discovered that contained payment records proving the team leader had been illegally diverting supplies to black marketers and lining his pockets with the proceeds. The general consensus among those investigating the incident was the team leader was double crossed by whatever criminal element he was doing business with…that is until the missing medical supplies showed up in the camps the next morning and were quickly distributed before any of the guards noticed.

Pain closed his eyes when he remembered that first act of rebellion. The decision had seemed so clear at the time, he and his two teammates saw an injustice that would have lead to the death of possibly thousands and chose to act. They were so young and idealistic back then. They hadn't even planned on killing the four Rain-nins. Pain doubted the three genin on the team even knew what their leader was doing. The three young shinobi were simply following orders, escorting a wagon load of crates from one location to another and waiting for their leader to finish handling the exchange with what they likely believed to be a representative from the camps. But things got out of hand. The black marketer the team leader was doing business with turned out to be a foreign shinobi, a corrupt jonin from Iwa who wasn't about to let three snot-nosed kids who thought they could change the world cheat him out of a lucrative deal. Pain and his companions survived the battle, but the three genin who came rushing to their team leader's aid died along with him and the Iwa jonin.

Despite their guilt over the death of the three innocents, younger kids than even themselves at the time, they'd decided to keep going after the corrupt shinobi who were stealing supplies desperately needed by the conscripted workers suffering in Hanzou-toshi and selling them to the profiteers among some of the foreign armies that still occupied parts of their country while the so-called peace settlement was being hammered out. They got away with it for four more months until Hanzou caught them in a trap and turned them over to Iwa's forces as a peace offering. Pain's fist clinched in a rare display of emotion when he remembered how Hanzou decided to be 'merciful' by making it a condition of the handover that they be imprisoned instead of executed. The bastard had actually thought he was doing them a favor by sparing their lives and letting Iwa throw them in that hellhole. If it hadn't been for meeting…

"Pain, he's here."

Pain turned and looked at blue haired woman standing by the passageway. He remembered how she had been so open and warm before, but a piece of her had died in that prison. He silently renewed his vow to remake the world that had taken so much from them, whatever the cost, before he stood to follow her deep into the bowels of the tower. After going down multiple flights of stairs, the pair reached a large metal door that was cracked open slightly. Pain pushed open the door and entered. Inside, the man known to him, Konan, and Zetsu as Madara but to everyone else as Tobi was closing the lid on a case containing a metal sphere two feet in diameter.

After he finished securing the latch on the case Madara spoke, "There's been an unexpected development with the Kyuubi's vessel."

"Was Itachi unable to capture him?" Pain asked.

Madara nodded. "But it was due to no fault of his own. Considering Deidara's failure in eliminating Sasuke, I decided to have Itachi deal with his brother instead." He made a mental note to have Zetsu keep an eye on the two Uchiha brothers when they met up. He wanted to make sure everything went according to plan. Itachi was always a concern, and Sasuke could easily prove to be a significant thorn in his side if he had learned even a fraction of what Orchimaru knew about him and Akatsuki and was able to start piecing things together. However, the real concern was the steps he was forced to take to retrieve the Kyuubi vessel. If he didn't play his hand carefully his true intentions would be revealed much sooner than planned. That would be inconvenient to say the least. A large part of his plan depended on the natural suspicious and xenophobic tendencies of the hidden villages keeping them divided until it was too late. There was also the issue of being forced to ask his ally to step in earlier than planned.

"Do you wish for me to capture Uzumaki Naruto?"

"No, he is currently in a place beyond even your reach, at least for the time being. I have been forced to make 'special' arrangements for his capture. However, there is another task that requires someone of your talents."

* * *

On the other side of the city, a green and yellow frog poked its head above the surface of the water under one of the piers that lined the eerily deserted waterfront. As soon as the amphibian confirmed that no one was in sight, it opened its mouth as wide as possible. A gauntlet covered hand and forearm reached out of the open mouth. Seemingly in defiance of the laws of physics, the rest of the full-grown man who pulled himself out of the normal-sized frog's mouth followed the hand.

Jiraiya stood on the water's surface and grinned. "I'm in. That was easier than I anticipated, or it seemed like it, at least." He made his way up a ladder onto the pier, shaking his head in wonder at the lack of security at the waterfront, believing it to be either a sign of overconfidence in their other security measures or someone shirking their duties. There weren't even any detection seals to warn of an intruder's approach. He made his way up to a flight of stairs to street level.

Unbeknownst to the Toad Sage, his arrival was noticed by two people. The first was a brown haired woman in her early thirties who pulled the hood of her rain cloak tighter around her face. If there had been anyone else around to witness the woman retreating into the shadows, they would have thought she had seen a ghost, or was one, based on how rapidly the color drained from her face. The second person alerted by Jiraiya's arrival was far more dangerous.

"What's wrong?" Konan asked when Pain came to a sudden halt in front of her.

"Someone has disturbed my rain's fall, and judging from their chakra, it's someone dangerous."

* * *

Overall, the city was remarkably quiet considering the size of its population. In most places the streets were nearly deserted. However, everyone needs to eat, and the locals were no exception judging by the busy market street. At least the rain made moving unnoticed through the crowd easier. Nearly all the civilians wore the same all-concealing rain cloak as the one Jiraiya now disguised himself with and tended to keep their eyes adverted downward as they moved from shop-to-shop buying groceries. Avoiding detection was a simple matter of suppressing his chakra and matching his body language to that of the denizens.

He judged his efforts to blend in successful. The people of Rain were understandably wary of foreigners, but no one, including the shinobi, seemed to pay him any unusual amount of attention. Despite this, Jiraiya remained on guard. At one point, he had briefly thought he was being followed but decided it was either his imagination or he'd had a tail for a minute or two before whoever it was decided he wasn't suspicious and shifted their attention elsewhere. Of more concern were the roving pairs of rebel Rain-nins who were watching the crowd closely and occasionally stopping people. He was fairly confident he could fool them even if he was stopped, as he had lived in Rain for a period of time and could imitate the local dialect and accent well enough to be taken for a native, but he preferred to avoid that until he spotted the opportunity he was waiting for.

In the meantime, Jiraiya took note of his surroundings as he meandered through the market, occasionally stopping to inspect the produce or make a small purchase for the sake of appearances. The mood in the market stood in stark contrast to the lively streets of his village. In Konoha, the sounds of friendly conversations, laughter, and playing children floated through the air anywhere people gathered. In Hinanjo, the only loud voices Jiraiya heard where those of the pairs of shinobi wearing slashed Rain forehead protectors that wandered the streets. The few children he saw seemed unnaturally quiet. He imagined the weather had something to do with it. Even in a place as accustomed to inclement weather as Rain, people were more interested in keeping dry than stopping to chat. Still, what little conversation he did hear between civilians who were standing under awnings or inside the stores seemed guarded.

However, what really struck Jiraiya was the cult of personality that appeared to surround this Pain character. In every shop and market stall the sannin walked by, numerous decrees and speeches by him were tacked up prominently. The decrees' language read more like some religious text that the public announcements issued from the Hokage Tower in Konoha. Jiraiya even saw one that spoke of how "our beloved Pain-sama smote another agent of our vile oppressor, Hanzou." Who the hell says 'smote'?

Deciding to try and find out how the locals really felt about Pain, Jiraiya began eavesdropping on private conversations. What he overheard was downright disturbing. The residents of Hinanjo seemed to pin everything, even their very existence, on every word and action of their unseen leader. It wasn't just propaganda, Jiraiya realized. Everyone he heard speak Pain's name did so with reverence, as if he was some omnipotent being looking out over his people. They really believed in Pain as some kind of demigod. Looking through a window at the food on the shelves of one store, Jiraiya figured it was a combination of brainwashing, something easily accomplished in a closed and tightly controlled society like Rain, and genuine gratitude for saving them from the hell that Rain had been before. He had yet to see any kind of media, news or otherwise, available for public consumption other than those damned fliers tacked up everywhere. There were no newspapers, magazines, or books on sale, not even…gasp…_Icha Icha Paradise_…the monsters! Given the tight border controls and lack of freedom of travel within the country, Pain likely had complete control over what little information reached the people from the outside world. If anything, that aspect of daily life in Hinanjo was likely worse that it had been under Hanzou, as it was impossible to keep news out of an active hidden village where shinobi were constantly going on missions to other lands.

Jiraiya was also well aware of the history of Hinanjo and the Land of Rain. Hanzou may have been honorable in battle, but he was the product of a time and place where life was cheap. The man he remember fighting a generation ago had probably considered the lives lost and suffering endured building the city a fair price to pay for what he hoped his nation would gain in return. Present day Hinanjo must feel like paradise to its inhabitants in comparison to when the city had been under Hanzou's thumb. Judging by the market he was presently wandering through, food was readily available, the people seemed poor but relatively healthy, and the streets free from crime and violence. All in all, it was a quality of life not seen in Rain in at least thirty years.

'But at what cost?' Jiraiya thought with a frown when he saw one scruffy looking rebel Rain-nin shoving a man to the ground and then start kicking and hitting the now prone man while his partner looked on. When the one doing the beating stopped, the one watching said something about not forgetting his papers next time. The two then walked off down a side street hunched over against the rain with their hands in their pockets talking about stopping somewhere for a drink, leaving the civilian to pick himself up off the ground. Jiraiya looked at the man as he painfully climbed to his feet. He was tempted to help him but realized doing so would draw unwanted attention. That none of the other people in the market acted like the incident was anything noteworthy, or even out of the ordinary for that matter, repulsed the sannin. Then it struck him. Hinanjo was exactly like Amegakure under Hanzou's leadership before the last big war. While Hanzou had not been viewed as a god-like figure, the level of paranoia, oppression, and lack of basic freedoms were the same.

"Seems the ends justify the means is still the law of the land here," Jiraiya whispered to himself before turning onto a side street that ran parallel to the one the two Rain ninjas had gone down. They were even heading back toward the nearly deserted waterfront. How considerate of the pair to save him the trouble of luring them back to his little trap. Maybe now he could get some answers about who Pain was and what Akatsuki was planning. Taking a pair of scumbags out of circulation would be an added bonus.

* * *

Kakashi, Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino were crouching in the tall reeds lining the bank of a lake that straddled the Fire/Rain border. In the distance, the towers of Hinanjo were barely visible through the heavy rainfall. It had been nearly two days since they departed Konoha. Kakashi had been true to his word; he had run the two chuunin into the ground trying to catch up to Jiraiya. Unfortunately, their efforts had been in vain. The Toad Sannin had too great of a head start for the three ninjas to catch up, and now they'd lost his trail at the edge of the lake.

Kiba turned to the masked jonin with a haggard expression on his face. "So now what?"

Kakashi looked out over the lake watching the rain, which seemed oddly heavier over the water, pour down. The only sign of life was a lone duck floating on the surface of the water. "We cross the border. We've come this far, seems a shame to turn back now."

The three shinobi and one ninja dog started to make their way down to the water. However before they reached the water's edge, the duck vanished in a splash. The back and head of a twenty-foot long crocodile surfaced and started to swim away, only to disappear in a thunderous explosion when the large reptile brushed against an underwater mine. Searchlights mounted atop a camouflaged lookout tower located on a small island midway between the shore and the city switched on and began sweeping the surface of the water. A boat could be seen in the distance leaving one of the city's docks, most likely headed for the shore to investigate the site of the blast.

"Perhaps it would be advisable to cross the border at a different location," Shino wryly suggested as bits of smoking crocodile meat rained down upon the group.

"Now why would we want to do that?" Kakashi asked while eying the boat headed their way with his uncovered Sharingan. "Especially when they're kind enough to send a nice, big boat for us to use."

Kiba flashed his teammate a feral grin. "Whatcha think, Shino?"

"It would save us from having to tolerate the wet dog smell."

Kiba cocked his head toward a rain-soaked Akamaru. "Little late if you're worried about that."

"Who said I was referring to him?" Shino asked while looking directly at Kiba, who had remained largely dry under his rain cloak. After a moment, Shino's expression subtly shifted from annoyance to questioning.

"Huh? Oh…not bad…not great, but definitely not bad. You're timing is getting better and you've got the sarcasm level nailed, but keep working on the actually putdown itself," Kiba replied with a grin. He'd been giving Shino trash talking lessons, much to Kurenai and Hinata's chagrin. It hadn't quite been what their jonin-sensei had in mind when she instructed them to work on their psychological warfare skills.

* * *

The boat dropped anchor one hundred yards from the bank, a nice safe distance from the collection of explosive traps that lined this particular stretch of shoreline. Hibiki stepped out from the small wheelhouse with a pair of binoculars and scanned the area. Spotting the charred remains of the reptile floating in the water and strewn in the reeds, he grimaced in sympathy for his subordinates. They were going to have a hell of a time cleaning up the mess, but it had to be done. Even a genin would be able to tell traps were hidden there if they left the carcass to rot in place. "Hey, Kaito, looks like you're going for a swim."

A man wearing a rebreather mask poked his head up through a hatch in the deck to see what Hibiki was talking about. The pair of eyes visible through the goggles scowled. "Stupid fuckin' crocs! We ought to kill the lot of them!" Kaito ducked back down below deck to find where he put the rest of his gear. He hated this part of his job with a passion.

Hibiki reported back over the radio what they'd found and then looked back over his shoulder at Kaoru, the third and final member of the crew, to share a grin when he heard the steady stream of curses continuing to come from below deck as Kaito finished getting his gear on. "Holy Shit!" Hibiki jumped, banging his head against the low wheelhouse roof, when instead of Kaoru, he saw a masked man with wild gray hair standing less than three feet behind him.

The masked man gave a lazy salute. His eyes were squinted shut in a smile. "Permission to come aboard, Skipper! We're going to borrow your boat for a little while. Hope you don't mind." When the man opened his eyes, Kaoru saw they were mismatched. One was a very normal dark brown. The other was red with three strange comma-shaped symbols than began spinning around and around. For some reason, Kaoru was unable to look away from that red eye or move to attack the intruder. He wondered why he suddenly felt so tired as he slid down to the floor in a trance, not realizing he was under a genjutsu. The last thing he heard before passing out was a muffled scream coming from Kaito down in the hold, something about bugs.

* * *

"What's the password?"

"Password? There isn't a password you stupid prick! Open the damned door!"

"Well if there isn't a password, how do I know it's really you?"

A fist started pounding on the door causing it to visibly shake. "Suigetsu, you mother-fucking shit head! When I get my hands on you, I'm going to shove that overgrown butter knife of yours so far up your ass…"

"Suigetsu, let her in before she decides to break the door down," a calm, yet tired sounding voice ordered.

Outside the room, Karin was surprised when the door unlocked with an audible click. She opened the door slowly and entered the hotel room, halfway expecting it to be some kind of trick.

"Yup, it's Karin," Suigetsu announced after he made sure he was out of the kunoichi's lunging range, "Can't fake that kind of bitchy, not to mention ugly."

Karin slammed the door shut behind her and was getting ready to pounce on the former Mist shinobi when Sasuke interrupted. "Karin?"

The redhead froze and then her voice instantly, and disturbingly, adopted a sugary sweet tone that failed to show one iota of the rage she had been displaying a millisecond before. "Yes, Sasuke-kun?"

"Did you find out anything about what happened?"

"There was a battle…"

"Duh, we figured that much out when we first got to town."

Karin shot a glare at Suigetsu before continuing. "The town was attacked by a large group of, depending on who you ask, one to three hundred weirdoes wearing armor and carrying weapons that fired 'bolts of lightning.' They rounded up everyone in town and were going to kill the mayor and town council, when a three-man team of Konoha ninjas showed up. The Konoha ninjas managed to rescue the townspeople, but the team's kunoichi was knocked out and captured. One of her teammates chased after her and her captors. They both disappeared without a trace. No one I talked to really made any sense when they tried to explain that part…a couple of people said something about a glowing wall of water. Anyway, a second group of five Konoha ninjas showed up and finished off the surviving attackers. Later in the day, three or four more teams, including one ANBU and one medical team, joined the six remaining shinobi to help with the clean up and the prisoners they captured. The last of them left town early this morning, so we should be okay staying here for the night."

Sasuke frowned, although the others couldn't tell if it was at the news of Konoha's involvement in the battle, the teams that had recently left, or Karin's mention of staying overnight. "Did anyone get any leads on Itachi?"

"Sasuke-kun, you're in no condition to even be thinking about that," Karin scolded. Sasuke ignored her and looked to Suigetsu.

"I heard plenty about Akatsuki as a whole but nothing specific about your brother. Akatsuki is after specific people; people with special kinds of chakra."

"Special kinds?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah, I'm not sure what that means. I did find out that they kidnapped the new Kazekage, one of the top Cloud jonin, and four or five other shinobi from various villages. Only the Kazekage, a guy by the name of…"

"Gaara of the Desert," Sasuke offered.

"Yeah, that's his name. This Gaara person was rescued alive by a Leaf team and one of the Suna elders, but Akatsuki killed all the others. The good news is that while Akatsuki has had three of their members killed so far, not counting the pair you smoked earlier today, Itachi wasn't one of them."

"I only got one, I think the other escaped." Sasuke looked over at Karin who simply shrugged in acknowledgement of the fact that she hadn't gotten any leads.

"From what the animals tell me, Akatsuki has several bases they operate out of," Juugo said. He glanced at the small bird that had landed on his shoulder. "They say they feel a strange, unpleasant chakra radiating from those places."

Suigetsu laughed. "Never would have guessed a bunch of stupid animals could sense chakra. Then again, 'stupid animal' describes Karin pretty well, so I guess it makes sense."

"You stupid asshole!" Karin screamed as her foot collided with Suigetsu's head and exploded in a shower of liquid. "I am fed up with your shit talking!"

Every time he started to reform she'd hit or kick him again. "Hey, ack! Cut it out, already!

By the window, Juugo started to muttering to himself about killing someone as the curse mark began to spread across his skin. He let out a primal roar that startled Karin and Suigetsu from their fight.

"Shit! Juugo's freaking out again!" Karin cried out as she and Suigetsu tried to tackle him. "Sasuke, do something!"

"Settle down, Juugo," Sasuke said as his activated Sharingan spun.

The black marks on Juugo's skin began to retreat. He started panting as the frenzied look in his eyes faded into a tired one. He slumped down to the floor. "S-s-sorry, I couldn't help it."

Suigetsu patted him on the back. "Don't worry about it, Big Guy. Unlike some people, you're actually useful. After we take care of Itachi we'll get you some help." Juugo half-heartedly nodded, already feeling the wave of remorse that usually followed his episodes.

Karin was too relieved it was over to rise to the verbal bait.

All three of them turned toward Sasuke when they heard a soft snoring sound. The Uchiha had fallen asleep sitting up, completely drained.

"Guess that settles the question of whether we're staying the night," Suigetsu noted.

"Good, Sasuke-kun needs to rest," Karin huffed.

For once, the former Mist-nin didn't argue with her. Unknown to either Suigetsu or Karin, many miles away four shinobi were rapidly advancing toward Team Hebi's location, the afternoon sun casting long shadows in their wake.

* * *

**End Chapter 3**

* * *

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* * *


	4. Chapter 4: Past and Present

**Shinobi Odyssey**

* * *

"Normal speech."

"_Speaking in a foreign language."_

**Disclaimer**: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto and all the characters from the anime and manga. The Stargate franchise is owned by MGM. Please do not reproduce this story without the permission of the author, huntsvilletiger.

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Don S. Davis, AKA Lt. Gen. George Hammond (August 4, 1942 - June 29, 2008).

* * *

**Chapter 4: Past and Present**

**Earth – Denver, Colorado**

"You were right," Jennings reported. He handed the folder he was carrying over to the rogue NID cell's leader. "According to the latest communication intercepts between Cheyenne Mountain and the Pentagon, the SGC has some new alien visitors. How'd you know?"

Hoskins smirked. "I have my sources," he answered cryptically.

"Well they certainly seem to be everything your sources claimed they were. Rapid healing abilities, multi-spectral vision, enhanced strength, and that appears to just be the tip of the iceberg of what they're capable of. I can see why you wanted to re-focus our surveillance assets on finding out more about them."

Hoskins flipped through the material in the folder. "Any chance they'll be moving them?"

The other man shrugged. "To soon to tell for sure, but my guess is they'll keep them at Stargate Command for at least a couple of weeks while they try to locate their home world. Thinking about a snatch op?"

The cell leader looked thoughtful for a moment then frowned. "Yes, but we'd never be able to pull off the mission with our current resources."

Jennings raised an eyebrow at the answer. His question about abducting the two alien teenagers had been meant as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek remark. He hadn't really expected his superior to be seriously considering it. Judging by the reports, grabbing either teen if they were unguarded and alone would have been a tricky, although not impossible, task. However, when you took into account their current location and the forces protecting Cheyenne Mountain, it became a suicide mission with zero chance of success. They might as well try stealing all the gold out of Fort Knox. It'd be easier.

"Problem?"

"No, just surprised. I was under the impression you wanted us to lay low for a while after our Salt Lake City safe house was raided," Jennings carefully responded. There was a whole alphabet soup of government agencies trying to track down the remaining rogue NID cells, so those suspected of being informants or just less than 100 percent devoted to the cause were mercilessly dealt with.

"I do, but let's just say someone I report to has expressed a great deal of interest in Mr. Uzumaki," Hoskins replied.

Jennings nodded his understanding. The Trust supported the cause, but they also expected a return on their investment. He could imagine the kind of medical advances they might glean from studying the alien boy. One of the organization's board members probably saw dollar signs and decided to pressure his cell leader to acquire 'samples.'

If that was the case, he needn't worry. The Hoskins he knew was a lot of things, but reckless wasn't one of them. Their cell had remained undetected for as long as it had for a reason after all.

Hoskins looked up from the report he was still reading. "Cassandra Fraiser? Isn't she the alien girl the head of the SGC's medical department adopted a few years ago?"

"Yeah. Apparently, she's bugging the doctor to let her meet the two other alien kids."

"And you found this out through the wiretap program we infected the Colorado Springs telecommunications switching computer with?" Jennings nodded in response. Hoskins stood and walked over to the window. "Interesting. Find out the girl's cell phone number and add it to the list. Make sure the program is set up to record text messages as well as calls."

"No problem, we can do that when we download the cache."

Hoskins continued looking out the window, as Jennings departed to make the necessary updates to the software. As soon as the door closed, his eyes briefly glowed. "Yes, very interesting indeed," he said to his reflection in an eerie, deeper voice.

* * *

**Stargate Command**

Seeing the major's eyes drift down to the bag of microwave popcorn he was eating from, O'Neill tilted it in her direction. "Want some? It's got real butter flavor," he said in a passable impression of the voice from the brand's TV commercials. Carter smiled back at him, but shook her head, no.

They, along with General Hammond and the rest of SG-1, were in the briefing room watching the highlights of the security camera footage of Naruto's 'escape attempt' and the chase that followed. After running out of the commissary, the young ninja had created a number of shadow clones that had base security running around in circles for the better part of an hour.

Presently on the monitor, Naruto was running down a corridor. Dr. Fraiser grabbed an SF by the shirt and pointed excitedly for the man and his partner to give chase. The two men ran past her and then disappeared around a corner in pursuit of the blond. As soon as they were out of view, there was a noticeable change in the doctor's body language. 'She' grinned, then pulled out the ID card she had surreptitiously palmed from the SF whose shirt she grabbed, and swiped it through the card reader on the wall next to the elevator.

However when the doors opened, 'Dr. Fraiser' found 'herself' face-to-face with the very teed off genuine article, who just happened to be riding the same elevator. There was a puff of smoke when Naruto dropped the henge and tried to make a run for it. However, the real Dr. Fraiser grabbed the young ninja before he could take a single step and yanked him into the elevator car with her. The doors closed and the recording switched views to another camera located on a different floor that showed the irate M.D. getting off the elevator and half leading, half dragging the whining blond by the ear back to the infirmary. The recording cut out right before the pair reached their destination.

General Hammond shook his head in amazement. "This base has a 20 million dollar internal security system and one of the best trained security forces in the world, and a fifteen year old makes fools of both while raiding our kitchen."

O'Neill couldn't help but agree. Naruto had evaded all attempts to corner him by skillfully using his shadow clones as decoys and often disguising himself as the very people chasing him. Half the time, they hadn't even been sure which level he was on. The worst part was O'Neill was fairly certain the teen had just been 'playing.' At least, that's what the part of the video where the real and undisguised Naruto actually stopped, waved at a security camera in one of the corridors, and then waited for the SFs to catch up before taking off again seemed to indicate.

However, O'Neill also thought Naruto had unintentionally done them a huge favor, which was something he intended to discuss with General Hammond in private before his CO called Captain Meyers, the officer in charge of base security, into his office. The young captain was new to Stargate Command, and in both senior officers' opinions, had not maintained the same level of preparedness and training for his men as his predecessor. Part of the problem was Meyers was a very by-the-book type of officer, and frankly, thinking outside the box and having the ability to adapt to the unexpected were much more important than the ability to follow SOP when it came to dealing with the kinds of security threats the SGC faced.

When O'Neill went to 'point out' that reality to the young captain after Dr. Fraiser caught Naruto, he was surprised to find Meyers on the phone scheduling additional time for the SFs at the training grounds and kill house located on Fort Carson, the army base literally across the road from the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain. It was generally the sign of a good officer that he or she realized their mistakes and immediately began taking steps to rectify them without needing to be told by a superior. At that point, O'Neill's visit changed from making sure the captain was aware he screwed up to making sure he didn't make a new mistake while trying to fix the first.

O'Neill knew from experience that military men and women in particular tended to have especially strong subconscious pack mentalities borne out of the knowledge that their very lives depended on teamwork and looking out for each other. The belief that you can trust your comrades-in-arms with your life is essential to the morale and fighting spirit of any combat unit. That was why the SGC made it a point to never leave anyone behind or give up on anyone missing in action or captured, no matter the odds.

A good leader could use that subconscious desire to 'run with the pack' to his advantage by saying something like, "you failed to keep up with the squad," and then giving the person being disciplined a standard or goal to reach for in order to redeem themselves. The fact those on the receiving end were undoubtedly already angry with themselves for failing their comrades' trust, meant the simple leadership tactic could often motivate someone more than all the yelling in the world could hope to accomplish.

With that in mind, O'Neill toned down the ass chewing he'd originally planned on delivering and then spent the following two hours discussing tactics and ways to make the SFs' training exercises more realistic to the kinds of situations they were likely to encounter with the young officer.

The best part was all this particular lesson had cost was a few bruised egos instead of the lives that might have been lost against a more hostile intruder. As a result, the colonel didn't feel the need to pile on Meyers and the SFs, which could potentially hurt their morale and resolve to meet the standards of the 'pack.'

"In their defense, sir," O'Neill offered, "the kid is a ninja from another planet. It's not like he's some random teenager we picked up off the street."

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed, "were not the ninjas of Earth renowned for their stealth and infiltration skills as well as their fighting ability?"

"And according to Hinata, he pulled the same stunt at the hospital in their village once, and even they only caught him after someone spotted him eating at his favorite restaurant," Daniel chipped in.

"Any chance Miss Hyuuga told you what their hospital did to prevent him from escaping a second time?"

Daniel smiled at the general's question. "She did mention someone named Shizune being very skilled at tying knots."

"Well in that case, let's put ol'Doc Fraiser in charge of security," O'Neill added helpfully. He'd stopped by the infirmary on his way down and could attest to the fact that Naruto would definitely not be making any further excursions from his bed until the good doctor released him.

General Hammond chortled. "Any serious suggestions or comments?"

"We could always replace the card readers on the elevators and blast doors with thumbprint scanners and upgrade the corridor security cameras to thermals, sir. It's probably something we should have done a long time ago, anyway," Carter suggested. "My guess is his disguise technique probably doesn't have the same thermal properties as real flesh and blood. If that's the case, his body heat should appear to be distributed differently to a thermal imager when he's using it. However, I still don't understand what this chakra of theirs is or to what degree they can manipulate it, so I can't be one hundred percent certain of that."

Daniel leaned back in his chair at the conference table. "I don't know how much this will help, but the term _chakra_ originated here on Earth in ancient India. It usually refers to the energy centers of the body located along the major branches of the nervous system. There are a number of similar concepts in other Eastern religions, philosophies, and martial arts. Now this is just a hypothesis, but maybe the people of Naruto and Hinata's world discovered how to unlock some kind of biophysical energy and adapted the concept of chakra to explain it."

"Well, we have seen people with unusual abilities before. For example, when Cassandra was infected with Nirrti's retrovirus and temporarily developed electromagnetism powers, or Ayiana, the woman Dr. Michaels' expedition found frozen in the glacier in Antarctica, who had similar healing powers to Naruto. We're still not completely able to explain either incident," Sam agreed.

General Hammond raised his hand for the others to be quiet for a moment when he noticed Siler come up the stairs from the control room. "What is it, Sergeant?"

"Excuse me, General Hammond, sir, but you wanted to be notified when the UAV was ready for launch."

"Right. Begin the dialing sequence; we'll join you in a moment."

Daniel shot a questioning look at O'Neill as the group got up from the conference table and made their way toward the stairs leading from the briefing room down to the control room. "We decided to send a UAV to take a closer look at the planet where we found the kids."

"Chevron six, engaged," Sergeant Harriman could be heard calling out from his seat in front of the dialing computer.

"Why?" Daniel asked, midway down the staircase. It was a bit unusual to 'waste' a UAV by sending it to a world they had already visited and had no plan of returning to.

"Chevron seven, locked." The control room filled with a shimmering light when the wormhole formed.

"P3X-4117 is one of the gate addresses we obtained from the Ancient repository. A normal Goa'uld, especially a minor one like Tilgath, shouldn't have had any knowledge of its existence," Carter answered. As they reached the landing, they could now see the small, unmanned aircraft sitting on the launcher's rails through the Control Room window.

"Couldn't he have discovered it with one of his ships?"

When they reached the Control Room Carter stood next to Daniel. "Possibly, but P3X-4117 is still way outside the region of space Tilgath normally operates in. Why would he risk sending one of the few motherships he has a quarter of the way across the galaxy to find a strategically insignificant planet that likely doesn't have any significant natural resources and then decide to build a base there?"

"UAV launch in 10…9…8…7…6…5…"

The propeller on the UAV spun to life.

"4…3…2…1…Launch." The rocket booster ignited causing the UAV to shoot forward with enough airspeed to stay airborne once it exited the Stargate on the planet. The UAV left the launch rails and then vanished through the event horizon, leaving behind only a trail of smoky rocket exhaust to be sucked up by the Gate Room's ventilation fans.

"Receiving telemetry from P3X-4117," the technician piloting the drone from the Control Room reported a few moments later. The overhead monitors in the Control Room switched from the screensaver to the video feed from the UAV.

"The target should be a little over five klicks to the left on the far side of a pair of hills," O'Neill informed the operator.

"Yes, sir." The technician pressed the smaller of the two joysticks in front of him to the left to rotate the UAV's camera turret.

Everyone watching the monitors was taken aback when instead of the expected Goa'uld vessel and base, a devastated, crater pockmarked landscape appeared. The technician focused the cameras in on the center of the area revealing that all that remained of the Ha'tak and stone structure were large scattered piles of still smoking debris strewn among the craters.

"Teal'c, any idea what we're looking at?" General Hammond asked.

Teal'c studied the video monitor for a moment before answering. "The damage appears consistent with an orbital bombardment by several Goa'uld motherships."

O'Neill leaned over the technician's shoulder and pointed at a group of dark specks in the bottom left of the video monitor. "Can you zoom in on those?"

The technician nodded and sent the necessary commands to the UAV. The camera angle shifted slightly and the image zoomed in on the specks just outside of the bombarded area, which turned out to be the bodies of around twenty Jaffa.

"Colonel, are those the same Jaffa killed by the boy and your team?" Hammond asked.

"No, sir. We were a lot closer to the gate." He turned to the technician. "Can you zoom in on a single body, airman?" The video image changed once again to where all that was visible on the screen was the body of a single Jaffa warrior lying face down in the dirt. He had clearly been struck by a staff weapon blast in the stomach. The camera panned across several more bodies in the group, all appeared to have been shot execution style in the head or symbiote pouch. There were no signs of the warriors' weapons. After scanning the area for several minutes, the UAV's cameras spotted several large groups of slaughtered Jaffa but no sign of any survivors or the attackers.

Teal'c scowled, not liking the implications of what he was seeing. However, it was Daniel who spoke up first. "This looks more like a massacre than a battle. When one Goa'uld attacks another, I thought the whole point was to gain territory or assassinate the attackee in order to take over his or her armies and fleets?"

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "The victor in a battle usually absorbs the forces of the vanquished, thereby increasing his own strength. Despite their well-earned reputation for brutality, the Goa'uld rarely execute Jaffa who surrender or are captured en masse. Any Jaffa who refuse to swear allegiance to their new 'god' are taken prisoner and put to work as slave labor, as recently happened to Master Bra'tac and Rya'c on the planet Erebus before their rescue. That is not to say it is unheard of for a Goa'uld to simply slaughter an enemy so completely and then abandon the battlefield, however, it is seldom done without good reason during a major conflict like the one now occurring between the System Lords and Anubis."

The General frowned. The logical part of him could easily explain away the incident as yet another example of the seemingly never-ending infighting among the Goa'uld. On the other hand, his instincts, honed during combat missions flown over Southeast Asia in his youth and the decades in uniform that followed, were screaming at him that there was something more going on. Maybe it was the fact that the massacre followed so closely on the heels of SG-1's encounter with the two teens currently in his base's infirmary, or Tilgath's unexplained presence on P3X-4117, or simply the brutal efficiency and overwhelming firepower used against such a seemingly insignificant target. Whatever the case may be, General Hammond couldn't escape the conclusion that something was 'off' about the whole affair. Looking at the faces of the members of the Stargate program's flagship team, he could tell their thoughts were leading them in similar directions.

Noticing the General scanning his team's faces, O'Neill acknowledged what his superior had already guessed with a subtle nod. "Sir, I'd like permission to take SG-1 back to P3X-4117. By the looks of things, whoever attacked the planet is long gone, and we might find some clues about what happened and why Tilgath was on the planet in the first place. At the very least, Carter should be able to retrieve the gate address of our new friends' home planet from the DHD's memory."

General Hammond checked his watch. There were a number of teams currently off world, who were scheduled to either return to Earth or report in. "The next available window in the gate schedule is three hours from now. Take SG teams 3 and 18 with you for backup. And Colonel…"

"Yes, sir?"

"Watch your six."

O'Neill gave a rare salute. "Always, sir."

* * *

"I could have sworn I put that new English for Japanese speakers book over here somewhere," Daniel muttered to himself as he dug through yet another of the perpetually growing stacks of books and academic journals that populated his office. Despite having only received the volume in question a few hours earlier, he had already misplaced the book and couldn't seem to locate it after fifteen minutes of searching.

While Daniel searched, Hinata kept herself entertained by looking at the various artifacts and photographs lining the shelves and walls of the cluttered workspace. She and her escort had been on the way back to the infirmary from the commissary when they ran into Daniel, who offered to take her the rest of the way after he picked up some books from his office.

She was beginning to get a little worried about how long Daniel was taking, though. She didn't like the idea of leaving Naruto alone for too long, especially after the stunt he pulled earlier while she was taking a long overdue nap on the bed next to his. Hinata knew Naruto well enough to realize sneaking out of the infirmary had merely been his way of dealing with his frustration with their situation, but she fretted about the possibility their hosts wouldn't be as understanding if it happened a second time.

A moment later, Hinata let out a surprised 'eep' when a loud crashing noise announced Daniel had been buried alive by a dangerously teetering stack of books whose collapse he had accidentally triggered. Falling books from the first stack caused four other stacks to give way, burying him even further. Hinata cringed as each stack fell. Before she could get to Daniel though, an olive drab sleeved arm stuck up from behind the large worktable in the center of the room and waved. _"I'm alright! Go back to whatever you were doing, I'll only be a couple more minutes."_

"_A-are you sure you don't want me to help, Jackson-san? I don't mind."_

Daniel slowly clambered to his feet, almost slipping back to the floor when a book got underfoot. His glasses had been knocked askew and were only hanging on by the end of his nose and a single earpiece. _"Thanks for offering, but I've got it. I have a system for keeping all this organized, believe it or not, and I don't want to mess it up," _Daniel claimed between sneezing fits caused by the cloud of dust the falling books had kicked up.

Hinata sighed, but nodded indulgently for Daniel to continue his search before resuming her own exploration. She figured he would eventually admit he couldn't find the book on his own and ask for her help.

At least, that's what always happened when Kiba, who claimed to have a similar system for organizing his room, lost something. Usually after a few days of digging through his room, Kiba would give up and ruefully ask her and Shino to use their abilities to help find the misplaced item.

Their teammate's slovenly habits annoyed Shino to no end, and Kiba's sister, Hana, had once declared…probably correctly…that her little brother's 'system' was throwing everything on the floor until even Akamaru refused to go inside and their mom threatened to use a fire jutsu to clean his bedroom for him. Hinata, on the other hand, honestly didn't mind. Being a bit of a slob was just part of what made Kiba, Kiba. Plus, she liked being able to give something back to one of her teammates. Both boys had been too good of friends to her over the years for her to even consider doing otherwise. However, she would admit to being embarrassed by some of Kiba's 'reading material' that she inevitably saw with her Byakugan while searching his room.

Hinata just hoped they, along with her family and the rest of their friends, weren't worrying about Naruto and her too much. The young kunoichi was especially concerned for her pregnant sensei, who was still dealing with the death of her husband, and that Kiba and Shino might do something foolhardy in her absence. Both boys tended to be overprotective of her. Kiba in particular was prone to acting before he thought things through all the way, and even Shino could be surprisingly rash at times, especially when it came to defending friends or his pride.

Her thoughts of home were interrupted when she reached Daniel's desk and noticed a hardbound textbook with _English as a Second Language, Japanese Speakers' Edition, Volume 1_ printed on the cover in kanji sticking out from under a stack of paperwork. She carefully pulled the book out from under the papers, making sure not to get them out of order.

She was about to announce her discovery to Daniel, when she saw the picture frame sitting next to the papers and book on the desk. The bronze complexioned woman in the photograph was strikingly beautiful, and Hinata could tell by the warmth and affection evident in her expression that the woman was deeply in love with the person taking her picture.

"_Oh, good. You found the book."_

Hinata turned her head to find Daniel walking toward her. Seeing the glint of a gold wedding band on one of his fingers, she put two and two together and smiled. _"Is this your wife? She's very pretty."_

"_Yes, she was," _Daniel answered with a forced smile and sadness evident in his voice. He picked up the photograph and stared at the woman's face, obviously lost in some memory.

Hinata realized what was wrong even before Daniel opened his mouth. His expression was identical to the one she had often seen her sensei wearing over the last few weeks. She reached out and gently touched Daniel's arm, breaking him out of his reverie. _"S-she's d-dead?"_ Daniel nodded. _"I-I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said anything,"_ Hinata said softly. She felt guilty that she'd reminded him of his loss with her question. He and everyone else she'd met at the SGC had been so kind to her and Naruto.

"_It's okay. You didn't know,"_ Daniel replied. He smiled more genuinely when he saw the sincerity and genuine concern in her eyes. He could also tell she was curious about what had happened to his wife but didn't want to open any more old wounds by prying.

He was thankful for Hinata's consideration. Despite her having died over four years ago, he was still not over Sha're's death. Sometimes he wondered if he ever would be. He couldn't even bring himself to stop wearing his wedding ring. The last time he tried, he didn't even make it to his car before he was overwhelmed by the urge to run back into the house and retrieve the ring from its place atop his dresser.

The process of regaining his memories after returning to human form a few months earlier hadn't helped matters. Having the excitement of remembering the love of his life shattered by the sudden realization that she was dead was like losing her all over again. Only his work and the support of his friends had kept him from sinking into depression.

However, maybe it was time to quit avoiding the subject. Sha're wouldn't have wanted him to grieve for her for the rest of his life. She would have wanted him to be happy and able to move on with his life.

Daniel decided to take the next step toward healing by talking about his late wife for the first time in months. He started telling Hinata the story of his and Sha're's life together, his search for her after she was taken as a host for Apophis' queen, and finally the day she died in his arms after Teal'c shot her to save his life.

Hinata sat on one of the stools around the worktable in awe for nearly an hour as Daniel told his story. A torrent of thoughts and emotions washed over her as she listened to the tale. She wanted to cheer when Daniel got to the part where he, Colonel O'Neill, and the rest of the first expedition through the stargate were finally able to defeat Ra and help the people of Abydos free themselves from slavery. She blushed mightily when he described how he and his wife fell in love and the year they spent together. She couldn't help imaging what it would be like if Naruto one day loved her the way Daniel had obviously loved Sha're. She felt a sense of horror deep in the pit of her stomach when Daniel described learning his wife had been chosen as a host by a Goa'uld on the planet Chulak. Then she was deeply moved by Sha're's selfless last gift that had allowed her husband to forgive his friend for what he'd had to do. And finally, she felt a wave of compassion and admiration for Daniel when she understood how difficult it must had been for him to soldier on after losing someone so precious.

In short, Hinata was overwhelmed. Daniel's tale was one of the most amazing stories of love, friendship, loss, and adventure she had ever heard. Then there were the deeper implications of what she had learned. The idea of other civilizations predating hers by thousands of years was mind-boggling. Little was known about her own world's history from before the start of the Age of the Hidden Villages a hundred years ago, as too many records had been lost in the violent era that preceded it. Even the idea of life on other worlds wasn't taken seriously by anyone other than a handful of philosophers and astronomers.

However, after being spirited away to one alien world then winding up on a second that was possibility the very world her ancestors had originated from, Hinata was starting to get used to having everything she thought she knew turned upside down. Which made it rather ironic that after all she had just been told it was the next words out of Daniel's mouth that finally knocked her for a loop.

"_If you don't mind me asking, you're in love with Naruto, aren't you?" _The sentence, delivered more as a statement of fact than an actual question, struck Hinata like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.

'I'll take that as a yes,' Daniel thought in amusement when she nearly fell off her stool. The look of shock and embarrassment on Hinata's face when she realized he knew of her 'secret' was priceless, especially considering how obvious her affection for the boy was to anyone paying attention. It was a minor miracle that Naruto hadn't figured it out himself.

Of course, Daniel knew he didn't have a lot of room to talk. He'd been just as clueless of the fact Sha're had fallen in love with him until her brother, Skaara, spilled the beans. For that matter, he had been equally unaware of Hinata's feelings for Naruto before Janet and Sam tipped him off.

Looking at her now, he could tell Hinata was absolutely petrified that he might tell Naruto about her feelings. It was a fear the archaeologist could sympathize with. He too had been painfully shy as a teenager, especially around the opposite sex. Despite having had his fair share of crushes in his youth, Daniel didn't work up the courage to actually ask a girl out for a date until his sophomore year of college and didn't have his first serious romantic relationship until he met Sarah while working on his PhD.

He attempted to allay Hinata's fears. _"Don't worry, you don't have to say anything, and I promise I won't tell him."_

She looked relieved, if still rosy cheeked. However, Daniel wasn't ready to let her completely off the hook just yet. He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking.

"_You know, when you're young, it's easy to think you have all the time in the world, but when you get older, you realize just how fleeting time really is. People go in and out of your life constantly. You should make the most of the time you have with those you care about, because you never know how long you'll have together."_ Daniel paused and looked down at the picture frame in his hands, once again rubbing his thumb across his wife's face. He looked up, locking eyes with Hinata. _"I know you're scared of getting hurt, but sometimes love is worth the risk. As painful as losing Sha're was, that pain was nothing compared to the joy and happiness she brought into my life. If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't trade a second of the time we had together or love her any less, even knowing what would eventually happen to her. Do you understand?"_

Hinata nodded slowly. She really did understand, but she didn't know if she had the courage to act upon that knowledge. What if Naruto not only rejected her but pushed her away, as well? The thought of losing the friendship she had with him, even though it wasn't the kind of relationship she really wanted, was terrifying. She dipped her head to think and avoid Daniel's gaze, but looked up when she sensed the arrival of a third person.

"Daniel Jackson, Colonel O'Neill asked me to remind you to be in the Gate Room in one hour," a stern looking Teal'c said. "He also said I should make sure your office had not attacked you, again."

While Daniel turned to look at the clock on the wall, a brief flash of sorrow and guilt crossed Teal'c's face when he spotted whose photograph Daniel still held in his hands, only for it to disappear when the other member of SG-1 turned back and let out a loud groan at the realization of how much time had passed.

Daniel quickly explained to Hinata what Teal'c had said and that he had to get ready for a mission he likely wouldn't return from until late that night. He deliberately left out what planet he was going to, since he didn't want to get her and Naruto's hopes up in case the mission turned out to be a bust.

At hearing the part about the Colonel's second order, Hinata's mouth twitched as she suppressed a smile while her eyes darted to the large pile of books sticking out from behind the worktable. To her surprise and Daniel's consternation, Teal'c smiled when he saw what was she was looking at.

"Apparently, O'Neill was correct to be concerned for your safety."

"Hey! I keep telling you two, I have a system," Daniel protested after hearing the friendly dig at his cluttered working space. He rather liked his office just the way it was, thank you very much. It was the only room in the whole base that didn't feel like…er, a secret underground bunker built during the Cold War.

"A likely story," Teal'c replied, his eyes still dancing in mirth.

He then nodded directly at Hinata and held out his hand for her to use to pull herself to her feet, earning a blush and demure smile from the shy teen for his thoughtful gesture. Once standing, she bowed politely to Teal'c as she'd been taught was good manners for a lady. He seemed pleased.

Teal'c turned to Daniel. "Shall we escort Hinata Hyuuga back to the infirmary?"

* * *

Naruto jerked his head toward the infirmary entrance at the sound of approaching footsteps. He tensed up in anticipation, but his shoulders slumped in obvious disappointment seconds later when he saw it was just two of the nursing staff returning from their break and not whom he had hoped.

One of the returning nurses noticed their newest patient's downcast countenance and whispered something to her colleague. The redhead looked at Naruto and 'aww'ed. Then both women flashed knowing smiles at the young shinobi.

Naruto's face immediately flushed bright pink. He tried to convince himself that it was because the two admittedly attractive women mistakenly thought he was checking them out, and not because they'd just busted him for being disappointed they weren't Hinata. Why would he possibly feel embarrassed about getting caught looking for Hinata, after all? She was his friend, and she was late coming back from lunch. He glanced at the clock on the wall for the nth time. It wasn't like he was keeping track of the two hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty-two seconds that had passed since she left…um, okay, bad example.

He was merely worried something had happened to her because she said she wouldn't be gone for more than an hour. Yeah, that was the reason. He wasn't anxiously counting the seconds because he missed her company or anything like that?

While Naruto was busy with his denial, Dr. Fraiser arrived and mouthed, "be nice, don't tease him," to the pair. The two twenty-something nurses responded with totally unconvincing 'who us' looks. The doctor shook her head in mock exasperation before motioning for them to get back to work.

She really couldn't blame the nurses for giving into the temptation to tease. The two romantically inexperienced fifteen year olds were so awkward, yet cute around each other that it was hard not to laugh at times.

'At least they appear to be normal teenagers in that department,' she mused.

Naruto looked up. Seeing how she had stopped scowling at him like she had been since dragging him back to the infirmary, he gave Dr. Fraiser a huge, squinty-eyed grin.

She was instantly reminded of the Cheshire Cat in "Alice in Wonderland," which was Cassandra's favorite book from when she was younger. The comparison was fitting. Like the fictional feline, Naruto was impertinent, mischievous, often infuriating, but oddly endearing, nonetheless.

Her own experience with the blonde was the perfect example. Despite the fact she had spent a good half hour after his little jaunt through the SGC trying to convince herself that strangling him wouldn't be a violation of her Hippocratic oath, Dr. Fraiser had to admit she was growing fond of Naruto. They all were, really. Colonel O'Neill had already stopped to 'sneak' Naruto the remainder of the meal he'd run out on. Even the SFs, the very guards Naruto had lead on the chase, seemed to have taken a shine to the teen. Two of them had stopped by when they got off watch to visit.

Don't get her wrong, Naruto still managed to get on nerves she didn't even know she had, especially after he discovered the call button on his hospital bed's controls. (She was ashamed to admit the fact he wouldn't be able to reach the button had influenced her decision to strap him down almost as much as the need to keep him from sneaking out of bed.) In fact, Naruto only had two rivals for the title of her most difficult patient. The first was Teal'c, who didn't seem to comprehend the phrase, "take it easy for a few days." The second was Colonel O'Neill, who…as much as Dr. Fraiser admired his character and valued his friendship…she had to admit, as a patient, could probably have tried even Mother Teresa's patience.

However, like the Colonel, there was something about the teenage ninja that made it nearly impossible for most people to stay angry with him for long, and trust her…she'd tried. No matter how good of a mad she got going, she'd inevitably end up smiling or laughing along with the blonde. Kind of like she was doing now.

It was at this point that Naruto decided to see if he could take advantage of Dr. Fraiser's apparent good mood with his 'puppy-dog-eyes no jutsu.' He'd managed to con Shizune with it a few times back home. Granted the medical-nin had eventually become immune to the technique, but Dr. Fraiser had never seen it before, so he remained optimistic.

He gave Dr. Fraiser a sad, soulful look, making sure his lower lip quivered ever so slightly. Once he had her maintaining eye contact, he slowly glanced down at the heavy leather straps securing his arms and legs to the hospital bed, causing the doctor's eyes to follow his, before returning his gaze to her face.

Dr. Fraiser rolled her eyes, but her expression still didn't show a trace of anger. When Naruto didn't relent in giving her the pitiful expression he was trying to con her with, she let off a sigh of resignation and started to reach toward the strap securing his left arm.

He perked up, thinking she might finally be willing to release him. Yes! He did a victory dance in his head but tried to maintain the innocent expression on his face as the doctor's hand got closer and closer to the buckle. However, when she was just inches from touching the leather strap, her hand abruptly changed direction and reached upward for something on the small, wheeled table that was pulled across his bed.

Perplexed, Naruto watched her pick up two of the English-Japanese flashcards Captain Miura had used earlier to start teaching Hinata and him some basic English vocabulary. Dr. Fraiser held one of the cards up for him to read. He decided to indulge her, figuring she wanted him to prove he had actually paid attention to the lesson before she would undo his restraints.

He read aloud first the English, then the Japanese side of the first card. "Nice._ Nice."_ 'Easy enough,' Naruto thought with a grin.

Dr. Fraiser held up the second card.

He couldn't remember the second English word right away, and had to think about it for nearly half a minute before he recalled how to pronounce it. "Tra...tru…um, Try_. Try."_

She then held up both cards side-by-side, and Naruto read them again. "Nice. Try." He said the Japanese words without having to see the back of the cards again. "_Nice try."_

Naruto grinned proudly for a moment until he suddenly realized the hidden meaning of the little quiz. The grin was instantly replaced with a surprised, then annoyed expression. He decided to communicate that annoyance by the only method available to him at the moment…he stuck his tongue out her. Dr. Fraiser couldn't help but let out a small laugh, which she tried to cover up with a cough. She ruffled his hair affectionately before walking off.

Naruto sulked. That was just cold! Weren't medically professionals supposed to be kind and nurturing? Why then did every single one he knew try to confine him to bed when he was feeling fine, starve him with hospital 'food', yell at him for voicing his opinion, bonk him on the head when he complained, or tie him up when he tried to sneak out for a few minutes to get a little fresh air? He couldn't even get away from their kind on another planet for cripes' sake.

'I hate being in the hospital!' He flexed his muscles against the heavy padded leather straps and then cast a dirty look at Dr. Fraiser's back while she talked to one of the nurses. 'Especially, when certain people with no sense of humor tie me up!'

Naruto nearly panicked when the doctor chose that moment to turn around. He let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding when she didn't give any indication she'd spotted him and walked off in a different direction.

After she finally caught him following his 'escape', he had discovered, much to his horror, that an interest in medicine wasn't the only trait Dr. Fraiser shared with Sakura. The blond suppressed the urge to shudder at the memory of the two long minutes he'd been trapped in the elevator with the older woman. Talk about killing intent! He'd rather bathe in barbeque sauce and then take a stroll through the Kyuubi's cage than go through that again. Well…at least until he was in a better position to outrun her, that is.

His wound was almost healed, so he figured she'd have to let him go soon. All he had to do was stay out of trouble for a little longer.

Of course, his nose chose that moment to start itching. It started out as minor tingle, but rapidly grew in intensity. He tried to ignore it, but found the harder he tried the worst the itch became. The more he thought about being unable to scratch his nose, the worse the itch became. Even breathing seemed to make the itch worse. He tried rubbing it against his shoulder but couldn't quite reach the itch. He squirmed against the restraints and fought the urge to scream.

He looked around in desperation for Captain Miura hoping to ask her to free his arm or at least scratch his nose for him but couldn't see her. He stared at the ceiling with his whole face twitching in frustration at his inability to find even a small measure of relief.

He was debating which would get him in more trouble, yelling or breaking his arm free to scratch, when a small dainty hand with wonderfully sharp fingernails reached out to scratch his nose. _"Ahhh! Higher. Higher. A little to the left. Oh yeah! Scratch right there! Harder! Yeeesss!"_ Naruto practically melted into the mattress as every muscle in his body went limp at the same time. He looked gratefully up at Hinata with a big goofy grin on his face. _"Thanks! You are now officially my most favorite person in the whole world! No! Make that both worlds!"_

Although her cheeks flushed a rosy shade of pink due to the physical contact and Naruto's melodramatic declaration, Hinata laughed. He could be so silly sometimes. It was one of the things she loved about him.

She was surprised when she noticed him staring at her with a startled expression on his face. _"N-Naruto-kun?"_

He grinned at her. _"That's the first time I've ever heard you laugh out loud like that…I like it!"_

Hinata blinked owlishly for a moment before she realized Naruto was right. Whenever she had run into him back home she usually barely managed to say hello before becoming too flustered to even talk, much less laugh. Then it register that Naruto had said he liked her laugh, too. The slight blush on her cheeks reappeared as she stared down at her feet with a small, yet happy, smile.

"_Thank you, Naruto-kun."_ It only took her a few seconds this time before she could look up at him again without feeling faint. Naruto had complimented her not once, but twice, and she hadn't make a fool of herself by fainting or freezing up. She'd even managed to thank him without stuttering. Hinata swelled in pride at the seemingly small accomplishment, causing her smile to brighten.

She had grown progressively more comfortable around Naruto as they spent time talking and studying together. To Hinata's amazement, Naruto seemed to enjoy their conversations almost as much as she did and showed an uncharacteristic amount of patience with her. Of course, she tried to remind herself not to get her hopes up and read too much into things. It probably had more to do with their shared predicament forcing them to turn to each other for moral support, not to mention him being somewhat of a captive audience, than any increase in courage on her part or change in the way he felt about her. Still, she couldn't forget the way he had held and comforted her when she was so upset the night before. She knew he'd do the same for any of his friends, that was just the kind of person her Naruto-kun was, but it had made her feel so close to him at the time.

Naruto was caught completely off guard by the mega-watt smile that lit up the normally shy kunoichi's face. She looked so beautiful.

His recent discovery that Hinata was a girl, and a rather attractive one at that, had completely flummoxed him. That didn't mean he'd been unaware of her gender before yesterday. He wasn't that oblivious. Even during their time at the academy, Naruto would have admitted he had thought Hinata was cute if pressed, although it was something he would have had to think about first. It was just that he'd always thought of Hinata as a friend first and a girl a very distant second.

He wasn't sure why the brief glimpse of her almost naked the day before had changed his perception of her so much. Between creating his Sexy Jutsu and the time he spent traveling with Jiraiya, he'd long ago lost any innocence he may have had when it came to seeing the feminine form in the buff. Maybe he was so affected because Hinata was someone he knew and cared about and not one of the floozies his perverted teacher liked to cavort with?

Hinata was one of the nicest people he knew. She was constantly handing out jars of homemade medical salve and cooking food for everyone to eat during missions and training. She always seemed to have something nice to say about everyone, even him. More than that, he trusted her. There were very few people he felt truly comfortable dropping his mask enough to revealing his inner most worries and insecurities, and she was definitely one of them.

He noticed Hinata looking around for her chair and frowning slightly when she realized someone had moved it while she was gone.

Naruto patted the bed. "You can sit here…um, if you want to, that is."

Hinata nervously bit her bottom lip for a second before deciding to take him up on the offer. She rolled the over-bed table out of the way and sat down facing Naruto slightly. Her hip pressed up against his thigh. They froze and looked at each other. Both unnaturally aware of the warmth of the other's body pressed against their own.

Naruto tried to break the tension. _"I'd scoot over to give you a little more room, but I'm a little tied up at the moment."_

She was a nervous judging by the two fingers she started pressing together. _"I-it's okay. I don't mind...__I-I m-mean t-the you not being able to scoot over part, n-not the you being tied up p-part!"_

Naruto grinned at her and laughed. _"That's good for me. I have more than enough people who want to see me tied up already."_

Hinata blushed heavily but smiled back. She was relieved he hadn't caught on to the naughty little fantasy that had flashed through her mind for a brief moment, prompting her stuttering elaboration.

Not being privy to Hinata's thoughts, Naruto was thinking about how he liked seeing her smile. Back when they were in the academy, she'd always had this sad look in her eyes that made him vaguely uncomfortable, because it too closely mirrored what he felt in his own heart but tried so hard to keep hidden. Before he learned about her family situation during the Chuunin Exams, he'd been completely mystified as to what could possibly make Hinata feel the same kind of sadness he did. She had a family, came from a prestigious clan, and while she wasn't exactly in the running for rookie of the year, she did well enough to be ranked in the middle third of their academy class. In the end, he had naively assumed he was mistaken and it was just another example of Hinata being 'weird.'

'Weird.' Naruto felt a twinge of guilt. He hadn't thought about the incident in years, but he could suddenly vividly recall the first time he called her that word.

They were around seven or eight and in the academy. Hinata came up to him during their recess period like she wanted to say something. He remembered being so excited that someone actually wanted to talk to him, but she just stood there looking at the ground and nervously pushing her fingers together. When he tried to say something to her, she got all fidgety and looked like she was getting a fever. Then the bell rang, and she ran off. When she left that first day he was disappointed but figured she was just worried about getting in trouble for being late to class.

Then the same thing happened again the next day, and the day after that, and every day for the rest of that week. By the following Monday, Naruto was frustrated and convinced she was just messing with him like everyone else in their class did. She and her friends were probably having a good laugh at his expense somewhere.

He wasn't going stand for it. When she came up to him during recess, he snapped at her. He'd planned to act all cool and show her by walking away, but things didn't work out quite that way. As soon as he said, "You're weird," Hinata's head shot up, and they made eye contact for the first time. She had the most heartbreaking, devastated expression he'd ever seen on her face. Then her eyes started to tear up, and she ran away.

He'd felt like such a heel, especially when he overheard two of the girls from their class later that day talking about finding Hinata in the girl's restroom crying.

She seemed to avoid him for a long time after that. He assumed she had decided to pretend he didn't exist like all the adults in the village. He wouldn't have blamed her. After a couple of months, they started running into each other again. He made a point of being nice whenever he saw her so he wouldn't hurt her feelings again, but he still thought she was kind of weird. He never apologized for making her cry either. His stupid pride got in the way.

Naruto frowned at that thought. Pride was also the reason he made Sasuke his rival after the Uchiha massacre instead of trying to be his friend. Would things have turned out differently if he'd done the opposite? Would Sasuke have accepted his friendship? Would he still have left Konoha?

'What if I hadn't been so prideful and quick to judge? Would Hinata and I have become friends sooner?' One of the things he was starting to realize after talking to her over the last couple of days was she, like him, didn't have any friends before she was placed on a genin team. 'If I had been a little more patient, maybe neither one of us would have been so lonely growing up.'

He looked up when he felt Hinata pensively staring at him, probably wondering why he'd suddenly gotten so quiet._ "I'm sorry I said you were weird."_

Hinata blinked at the abrupt change in topic. She had no idea what he was talking about. _"Huh?"_

Naruto elaborated,_ "Back when we were in the academy, you kept trying to come up to me to talk, but I called you weird and made you cry."_

She knew what he was talking about now. _"N-Naruto-kun, that was eight years ago, and it wasn't your fault. If…If I hadn't been so shy…"_ Her voice trailed off.

Naruto didn't like seeing Hinata's smile fade or the sadness starting to creep its way back into her voice, and he especially didn't like that he had caused both while trying to apologize. He stretched against the arm restraint toward her hand that rested on the bed a short distance from his own. He had to strain to reach her, but managed to hook one of her fingers with one of his and pull her hand into his grasp. He marveled at how comfortably her warm slender fingers intertwined with his own for a moment before giving her hand a light squeeze.

"_Hey, none of that. I was the one who was a jerk. I just brought it up because I was kinda wishing I hadn't been too proud to say I'm sorry. We could have become friends sooner."_

Naruto smiled when a now blushing Hinata looked up.

"_Besides, being weird isn't so bad. All ninjas are weird to one degree or another. Hell, I'm weird, and so are all of our friends, for that matter." _Naruto immediately thought of running into Lee and Gai-sensei when they were leaving Konoha. Despite the fact it had been pouring down rain, their two green spandex wearing friends had been doing laps around the village on their hands while shouting about the power of youth. His smile broke into a full-fledged grin when he realized Hinata was thinking of the same thing. _"Some more than others."_

Hinata snorted. She gasped in horror at the noise she'd made, but relaxed when Naruto chuckled and squeezed her hand again reassuringly.

"_W-what about Neji-nii-san? He's not weird," _she asked, feeling a little surer of herself.

"_Oh, Neji's the weirdest one of us all."_ Naruto paused, looked around as if to make sure no one was listening in, and motioned with his head for Hinata to come closer. She leaned in. _"Hyuuga Neji…your cousin," _Naruto continued in a low, conspiratorial tone, _"…the pride of the Hyuuga clan…wears a man-skirt."_

Hinata slapped a laughing Naruto's arm with her free hand. _"Naruto-kun! That was mean! Neji-nii-san wears a traditional Hyuuga clan combat uniform…for men!"_ She tried to act indignant, but the twinkle in her eyes gave her away. The corners of her mouth began to turn up in a smile, as she struggled to keep from giggling. _"But it does kind of look like a skirt, doesn't it?"_

"_At least it goes with his hair," _Naruto confirmed. They both cracked up and started laughing.

"_You're incorrigible," _Hinata said between giggles. _"I really shouldn't be laughing. Neji's family."_

"_I do my best,"_ Naruto replied with a wink. _"Besides, somebody's got to keep him from taking himself too seriously and getting all, 'this is your fate,' again,"_ he added, doing a very bad impression of Neji that prompted a fresh round of laughter._ "Who better for the job than his family and friends?"_

_"Hai."  
_

* * *

**Naruto's World**

"Wakie, Wakie, my little song birds," Jiraiya teased when he saw the first signs that his two captives were starting to regain consciousness.

"Damn you! Let us go!" The spiky haired, scarred one of the pair yelled at Jiraiya when he woke up enough to realize his arms and legs were being restrained within the fleshy wall at their backs.

The other shook his head to clear it and looked around the chamber in amazement. The last thing he could remember was walking into the new bar they'd found and talking to the weird bartender with the bushy white mustache and glasses behind the counter. "Where the hell are we?"

"Inside of the belly of my frog," Jiraiya answered with an amused grin.

"What?! You! You're that sannin, the one who uses frogs, aren't you?!"

Jiraiya chuckled to himself. This guy was definitely not the sharpest kunai in Rain. "Now, now, I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions here."

"You'll get nothing out of us!"

"Oh, really?" Jiraiya said while holding up a single feather. Both men stared at him in confusion.

"What's the feather for?"

"It's for tickling, of course. If you don't want to get tickled to death, you'll answer my questions like good boys."

The two shinobi looked at Jiraiya like he was out of mind.

"Now, about your leader Pain…"

* * *

Below deck of the patrol boat Kakashi and the male half of Team 8 had commandeered, Shino was beginning to question the wisdom of their chosen course of action. Largely due to fortuitous circumstance, sneaking into Hinanjo was proving to be easier…if somewhat more uncomfortable…than expected.

Currently, he, Kiba, Akamaru, and their three prisoners were crammed into the small hold of the patrol boat. In addition to being too low to stand up in, between all the gear tucked away in every nook and cranny and the boat's assorted machinery, there was barely enough space for its six occupants to sit down in the confined space. Shino didn't even have enough room to stretch his legs out to their full-length unless he planned on using Kiba as a footstool.

That was to say nothing of how much the small steam engine that powered the boat raised the air temperature. It was so hot, even he had seen fit to strip down to just his pants and t-shirt. He normally avoided doing so even on the hottest summer day, because the sight of the small flaps of skin where his bugs entered and exited his body tended to make people squeamish. However, the only people around to see them at the moment were Kiba, who had never been seriously bothered by what the dog-user called his teammate's 'little friends', and their three bound and gagged captives, whose opinions Shino frankly didn't care about.

However, the worst part was not the heat or claustrophobic conditions but the smell. Judging by the rancid stench of dead fish that still clung to the wooden hull, the patrol craft had originally been built as a fishing vessel and served in that capacity for a number of years before being adapted to its present role. In addition to the fishy aroma, there was the wet dog smell originating from Akamaru and the fact one of their prisoners obviously ate a lot of cabbage with predictable results. Shino supposed he should be thankful he didn't have Kiba's acute sense of smell. When he wasn't holding his nose, Shino's teammate had taken to cursing loudly and kicking their bound, gassy prisoner in the leg whenever the man broke wind.

Adding to their collective misery were Kakashi's boat handling skills, or rather his lack thereof. The jonin seemed to hit every last wake, ripple, and wave at just the right angle to induce a slow rocking motion that lasted just long enough for the boat to reach the next disturbance in the lake's surface, leaving everyone below deck feeling slightly nauseous. Shino winced as the boat hit another's wake, this time with enough force to jar his teeth, for a change. Why had the legendary Copy Ninja picked now of all times to discover the one skill he wasn't automatically a natural at?

Of course, Shino was aware that things could be going far worse, even taking into account the abominable conditions in the hold and Kakashi's driving. Their approach had so far gone undetected, largely due to Kakashi spotting the chakra-laced rain that began a couple of hundred meters from the part of the lakeshore where they first arrived when he uncovered his Sharingan eye. Without that one bit of luck, they would have unknowingly revealed their presence to whoever had cast the detection jutsu and likely caused every shinobi within a ten-mile radius to give chase.

And that was the real problem that had Shino worried. Barring the unlikely possibility of spotting Jiraiya along the waterfront, there was no way they could search for the sannin without going out into the rain and being instantly detected. Even his kikaichu, which were normally ideal for searching a wide area like a city, were not much help in this downpour. The heavy rainfall would simply knock them out of the sky when they tried to fly.

He didn't have a clue how Kakashi planned to find and contact Jiraiya. Unlike Kurenai, who liked to plan out missions in detail beforehand and kept her subordinates in the loop at all times, the masked jonin was either making it up as he went along or felt no compulsion to inform them of his intentions. Despite the age-old maxim that "even the best laid plans rarely survive first contact with the enemy," the bug-user firmly believed it was far better to adapt a well thought out strategy to unexpected circumstances than to play it by ear. Needless to say, Shino was far outside of his normal comfort zone.

* * *

"We'll call it a day, then, but I'm leaving you here," Jiraiya announced with a dismissive wave as he started walking toward the passageway leading to the next chamber of his summon's stomach. "I think it's time I had a little talk with your 'god'."

The man still restrained by the fleshy walls stared at the sannin's retreating back dumbly, but he jumped in fright when the small frog that had been his partner just minutes earlier let out a ribbit.

Once the passageway entrance sealed shut behind him, Jiraiya finally allowed himself a laugh at the trick he'd used to get the man to talk. 'I don't know why everyone thinks this interrogation thing is so difficult. A little summoning, a well-timed Kawarimi no Jutsu, and bingo! Instant blabbermouth!'

In truth, Jiraiya was relieved his ruse had worked. He would freely admit he had neither Ibiki's finesse nor the capacity for heartless cruelty that might have been required if either Rain shinobi had called him on his fake 'turn a man into a frog' jutsu.

However, the sense of relief was fleeting due to what he'd learned. Hanzou, one of the most powerful shinobi in living memory, had been killed; Amegakure had been wiped off the map; and both supposedly owed their destruction to one man…Pain.

Jiraiya could scarcely believe the legendary Salamander Hanzou was dead. The Hanzou he remembered had seemed nearly invincible. The Amegakure leader had not only managed to keep his country together in the face of some of the most powerful armies in history, but also defeated the combined might of Tsuande, Orichmaru, and himself. Hanzou probably would have easily finished them off, too, if he hadn't had to withdraw in the face of approaching reinforcements from Konoha lead by the man who would eventually become the Fourth Hokage.

Oh how Jiraiya would have loved to have seen that match up, if for no other reason that to watch Orchimaru stare in disbelief while the student of his "baka of a teammate" used the Hiraishin no Jutsu, which the blonde had unveiled in combat for the first time earlier that day, to defeat Hanzou. The look on the snake sannin's face when he later found out the young jonin had single-handedly wiped out an army of Iwa shinobi had been priceless enough, as is.

Still, the question of just how powerful this Pain character really was remained. While Jiraiya had grown much stronger in the eighteen or so years since that battle, he somehow doubted Hanzou had been content to rest on his laurels either. If Pain really did best his old enemy in one-on-one combat, there was a good possibility he was more powerful than either of the two remaining Legendary Sannin.

Then there was what happened to Amegakure, itself. A hidden village along with its entire population annihilated in a single night by one man? The only survivors the few shinobi who had been away from the village on missions at the time? It was almost too much to believe. A hidden village, even one of the smaller ones like Amegakure, was a difficult enough target to destroy if you had an entire army backing you up. Not that Pain had stopped there. According to his prisoner, Pain had gone on to kill Hanzou's entire family, all his friends and associates, and clients of the village who maintained connections to Amegakure, not even sparing their infant children.

'What was it he called it, ah yes, Pain's "heart of blades." Sounds about right. No wonder these people fear and respect him, but to revere him as a god is still ludicrous.' The very idea of a shinobi, no matter how powerful he or she was, claiming to be a god was an affront to all of shinobi culture. That had been true since the Sage of the Six Paths, the first shinobi to unlock the secrets of chakra and the father of chakra-based ninjutsu, defeated a powerful tyrant posing as a god and founded the ninja world.

His distain didn't change how seriously the sannin took the threat, however. Among the enemies Jiraiya had encountered in his lifetime, those who were the most feared by their own people usually failed to live up to the hype. They only appeared powerful because they were often the biggest fish in their small, isolated ponds. That kind of villain rarely lasted long once they encountered serious opposition from the outside world. Unfortunately, Pain sounded like he could very well be the real deal: not a god, but a shinobi above the level of most kages in terms of power and skill, who was also highly intelligent not to mention absolutely ruthless.

Not for the first time, Jiraiya found himself wishing the Fourth was still alive. The Fourth's very existence had served as a massive deterrent to would be tyrants and troublemakers like this Pain. Simply put, Namikaze Minato had been in a league of his own, and the whole shinobi world had known it. After Minato's death, the threats and enemies confronting Konoha seemed to grow in strength and numbers with each passing year.

The boy who would one day be the Fourth Hokage didn't begin his shinobi career all that impressively, though. When Jiraiya first met Minato, he was a ten-year-old genin fresh out of the academy. He was clever and talented, but no rookie-of-the-year genius. Jiraiya's first impression of the newly minted genin was he would probably make chuunin one day but didn't have the necessary drive to make jonin. He worked hard enough to get by as a shinobi, but never seemed to take his training in the 'the lives of my teammates and myself could depend on this' way he should have. All things considered, the young Minato Namikaze had been nothing more than a slightly better than average rookie genin.

That all changed after the first C-ranked mission Jiraiya took his Team 7 on. The mission was a simple two-week long patrol near the border with the Land of Grass. As Grass was an ally of Konoha, the patrol was a fairly safe choice for a green team of genin on their first mission outside the village. At most, Jiraiya had figured they might run into some bandits or smugglers, but more than likely, his three genin would spend the next fourteen days counting trees and complaining about the field rations.

For the first twelve days, that's exactly what did happened. Then late in the afternoon of their thirteenth day on patrol, Team Noda, a team of genin who had graduated from the academy two years before Jiraiya's rookies, and their jonin-sensei arrived to relieve Team 7. Like the previous team had done for them, Team 7 took the new arrivals on a tour of their assigned patrol sector pointing out various things they needed to keep an eye on over the upcoming two weeks.

The two teams encountered nothing out of the ordinary until they were almost to the mouth of the narrow valley leading to the strategically located village of Tokorono. Then all hell broke loose, and they were suddenly surrounded by scores of enemy shinobi. The two Konoha genin teams had run smack dab into a large group of Iwa shinobi, who were the lead element of the invasion that began the Second Secret World War.

In the running melee that followed, Noda was severely wounded and Jiraiya separated from his genin team after six enemy jonin jumped the pair of Leaf jonin-sensei. It ended up taking Jiraiya nearly twenty minutes to fight his way back to where his three young subordinates were, only to be greeted by a horrific sight upon his arrival. Two of his genin had been brutally slaughtered, and a quartet of sadistic Iwa chuunin were in the process of beating Minato, the lone survivor, to a bloody pulp. Enraged, Jiraiya tore into the four chuunin with a vengeance, finishing them off almost before they realized he was even there. The future sannin then carried his bloodied and battered genin to Tokorono where they met back up with Team Noda and were evacuated along with the villagers by the arriving reinforcements from Konoha.

The lives of the six survivors of Team 7 and Team Noda were never the same after that day. The formally fractious group of older genin, who had miraculously survived their baptism of fire largely unscathed, forged a friendship that would last their entire lives and went on to become the first legendary Ino-Shika-Cho team. Their sensei, Noda, who lost a leg in the battle, was forced to turn over his genin team to another jonin and spend the rest of the war behind a desk at the Konohagakure Information Bureau, where he made a name for himself as the Leaf's head of intelligence and spymaster extraordinaire. After the war ended, he took early retire and opened a bar that soon became a Konoha landmark and the favorite watering hole for the village's jonin. Then there was Jiraiya's lone surviving student.

While Minato was recovering in the hospital, word reached Konoha than the genin's entire family had been killed during a raid on the small coastal village they lived in by one of Iwa's allies. The news caused the already devastated boy to retreat further into a deep depression, which lasted for months. Eventually, he seemed to snap out of it, and once again became the friendly, easy-going kid everyone remembered.

Jiraiya knew differently. The death of his family and two best friends had a dramatic effect on the formally complacent blonde. Where before he had performed his duties as a shinobi in a lackadaisical fashion, he now threw himself into his training and missions with a determination that was almost frightening in its intensity. At the first Chuunin Exams held after the war, Minato came out of nowhere to thrash his competition, winning the finals and earning a promotion in the process. Eighteen months after that he made jonin. By the time he was seventeen, he was the equal of any of the Legendary Sannin. By eighteen, his ability arguably surpassed that of even the Hokage.

Despite this, the blonde remained a relative unknown outside of Konoha until the start of the Third Secret World War. It was during that conflict that the rest of the shinobi world would discover that behind the now adult Minato's friendly smile beat the heart of a warrior and protector and the legend of Konoha's Yellow Flash would be born.

In fact, it was Minato who was largely responsible for ending the war. After he finally perfected his original Hiraishin no Jutsu, he used the technique to single-handedly end a pair of bloody two-year old stalemates on first the Grass and then the Rain Country fronts.

However, his masterstroke had been a bold plan the Third Hokage and he cooked up to take out the hardliner Tsuchikage and daimyo of Earth Country, who both insisted on fighting to the bitter end even after it became apparent to everyone which side would be victorious. The pair of dead-enders had wanted to continue the war in order to avoid the personal consequences of their misguided empire-building adventure for as long as possible, no matter the cost to their people.

The first step of the plan called for Minato to fake his own death during a battle with a group of elite Iwa jonin. The Third had correctly guessed that in their excitement to verify the death of their most hated enemy and reward those responsible, the Tsuchikage and Earth Country daimyo would order the Iwa jonin to report to them in person, bypassing the pair's normally strictly-enforced security measure of not meeting with anyone outside of their carefully monitored inner circle.

The resulting pandemonium when a grinning Minato used the seal he'd secretly planted on one of the Iwa jonin to teleport into the Iwa council meeting, landing right between the two leaders announcing his 'demise', and whisk the pair back to Konoha before anyone could react had been enough to convince the remaining members of the council to readily agree to the surrender terms written by the Third that Minato left behind on the podium. Jiraiya smirked at the memory. 'The brat always did know how to make an entrance.'

However, the most amazing thing about Namikaze Minato was not his accomplishments during the war or rapid growth in strength and skill. No. What had truly made Minato special was, despite all his accomplishments, nothing he did after his tragic first C-ranked mission was ever about him. The fame and glory he gained as Konoha's Yellow Flash, his elevation to the status of legend following his death while defeating the Kyuubi, and even his becoming the Fourth Hokage were nothing more than superfluous results of what truly drove him. Namely, a desire to never again be forced to watch helplessly as someone he cared about was killed or hurt.

Jiraiya was suddenly reminded of another blond-haired apprentice of his who never gave up on his precious people either. "Your son may not have grown up knowing you, but he certainly inherited your and Kushina's spirits. You would have been proud." The sannin wiped away a bit of moisture from the corner of one eye at the memory of the long dead student he had come to love like the son he never had and his student's beautiful wife who had treated him like a beloved uncle.

"Must have something in my eye," he muttered. "Okay, enough pussyfooting around," Jiraiya announced loudly, switching gears, and once again adopting a smile. He'd never been the type to wallow in his grief. 'Better to be thankful for what you still have and enjoy life than obsess about what you've lost and turn into a sourpuss. That's what I always told you, isn't it, Minato?'

He made the snake sign with his hands and opened his mouth. His lower jaw stretched almost as if it were made of elastic as a toad pulled itself out of the sannin's mouth. The toad's disproportionately long body seemed to take forever to emerge.

Finally, Jiraiya could close his mouth. He worked his jaw back and forth a few times, wondering, not for the first time, how his now dead former teammate could stand using the unusual summoning technique so often. The feeling someone had just shoved a telephone pole out of his open mouth was bad enough, but the aftertaste! Ugh! He liked toads well enough, but even he didn't particularly care for having his mouth taste like one for the next few hours.

The toad crossed its arms, feeling insulted after having guessed why Jiraiya was making the odd face. "Alright, you'd better have a good reason for dragging me out here! Naruto's 'combination' is…"

"Whoa! Wait a minute!" Jiraiya looked up at the toad's face, which, despite the summon creature's body only being slightly wider than the sannin's head at its thickest, now towered above him. "This isn't for training. I've got something to take care of, and I figured I should let you out just to be on the safe side."

"What for?"

"I'm going to have to fight someone, and I have a feeling it's going to get pretty rough."

"Must be if you're thinking of releasing me," the toad replied, real concern now apparent in his voice. An opponent tough enough to worry one of the sannin was someone to take seriously.

"It's just a precaution. Now hurry up, I want to press the seal and get you out of here."

The stretched flap of skin wrapped around the toad's elongated belly unraveled like a scroll, revealing that it was covered in writing and seals. One prominent seal in particular stood out. It was identical to the one on the belly of a fifteen year-old genin, who was currently light years away.

Jiraiya's fingertips glowed as he pressed them against a security seal in a corner of the 'scroll.'

The toad jerked its body, causing the flap of skin to wrap around him like a suddenly released window blind. "How long is this business of yours going to take?"

Jiraiya shrugged. "Not long, but if something does happen to me, get yourself to Naruto."

"What the hell are you saying? The combination to Naruto's Eight Trigrams seal is written on my belly. Time has weakened the Fourth's seal! That's why he left the seal behind, in case it needed to be reapplied! You can't just give it to him like this!"

"Getting ahead of yourself a bit, aren't you? I'm not dead yet. Still, the combination was Minato's, so it should pass on to Naruto at some point," an annoyed Jiraiya countered

"He's not ready," the toad shot back. "Remember what happened the last time you tried messing with the seal? Just opening the seal the tiny crack that you did then caused the Kyuubi's chakra to pour out, overwhelming Naruto, and taking control of him! Opening the seal more could allow the Kyuubi to escape! Somehow, I doubt that's what the Fourth had in mind!"

Jiraiya frowned. "No. I was Minato's teacher, remember? He never did anything without a purpose. I think he knew something extremely important and sealed the Nine-Tails in his son, hoping Naruto would learn what to do with it."

"You're over analyzing," the toad chided.

"Maybe, but lately, I've begun to doubt the Kyuubi's attack on Konoha was the act of God everyone has made it out to be. I think the Kyuubi was summoned."

The toad practically exploded. "You're nuts! The Kyuubi has been around for ages! It appears whenever the evil of men reaches a peak, wrecks havoc across the land, and then vanishes without a trace! No one in the universe could summon a monstrosity like that!"

Jiraiya sighed. "No…there was once a person who could."

"Who?

"The founder of the Uchiha clan, Uchiha Madara."

The sound of laughter filled the chamber. "Uchiha Madara was one of Konoha's founding fathers! He couldn't have been around to summon the Kyuubi fifteen or sixteen years ago!"

"True, Madara was supposedly killed in the Valley of the End by the First Hokage, but still, I've got a bad feeling about all of this," Jiraiya answered. "So, just humor me, okay?"

The scroll toad sighed and signaled his acquiescence to the sannin's request. "Fine."

"Oh, and one more thing," Jiraiya said as he turned to leave. "If something does happen, make sure Gamabunta gives Naruto his parents' chest, too. The brat's waited long enough to find out about his heritage."

* * *

'If I ever decide to retire, I bet I could make a pretty good living as the captain of a charter fishing boat,' Kakashi daydreamed. 'It would be just like living in _Icha Icha_ _Island Paradise_.'

Of course, he'd already discovered a problem with his newfound retirement scheme. Steering a boat seriously got in the way of his reading. He'd lost his place more times than he could count when he had to look up to dodge other boats or steer back into the buoy-marked channel. Oh well, he could always hire a first mate to handle the seamanship stuff.

Kakashi took a moment to look up from his book at the rapidly approaching skyline of Hinanjo. Contrary to what Shino believed, Kakashi actually did have a plan. His plan was to wait and see what Jiraiya's plan was. Admittedly, as plans went, it wasn't much, but Kakashi had a hunch that the problem of finding the sannin would soon take care of itself. He'd known Jiraiya for a long time, and if there was one thing the man wasn't, it was subtle.

As Kakashi pondered his options for contacting Jiraiya once he knew his location, there was a sudden and dramatic let up in the rainfall. In less than a minute, the sun was beginning to peak out from behind the clouds.

"Yo! Shino, Kiba! Get up here!"

A load bang came from forward of the wheelhouse when Kiba none too gently flung open the hatch leading below deck. The two sweaty and slightly green-looking chuunin climbed onto deck. "It's about damn time," Kiba growled. His annoyance only grew when he saw the glassy smooth lake surface. "What the hell have you been doing to make us rock around so much?"

Kakashi appeared puzzled. All he had done was steer the boat. "Hmm?"

Kiba started to stalk toward the masked jonin. "Why you…"

Shino decided to interrupt and remind everyone of the mission before things got out of hand. "The rain, and I assume the detection jutsu, have ended. Do you want me to send my kikaichu out to search for Jiraiya, now?"

"Do it." Finding Jiraiya before he revealed himself was a thousand times more preferable to waiting until after.

Shino nodded and then released a cloud of insects into the air.

Kakashi just hoped they found him before the shit hit the fan. He had a bad feeling that the sudden change in the weather signified things were about to start happening, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught in the middle of a battle between S-ranked ninjas with two young chuunin in tow.

* * *

On top of one of the city's western towers, a swarm of paper butterflies swirled together, unfolding, and combining until the form of Konan began to appear. In front of her, a man with a long blonde ponytail, heavy metal studs set in the skin of his face, and wearing an Akatsuki robe stood patiently.

"Well?"

"It's Jiraiya," Konan reported.

"Jiraiya-sensei? Really now, just his name takes me back."

"What do we do, Pain?"

"Kill him, of course. I hold no more love for him, and I took out this body to finish off an intruder."

For the briefest of moments, Konan's eyes widened in shock. Luckily, Pain had turned his back to her to look out over the city. She schooled her expression, and responded as impassively as possible. "As you wish."

"Tell me where he is."

"The industrial area to the south of the tower."

"I'll hold him off until you get there," Konan said as she scattered herself to the wind.

"Don't mind me. If you get an opportunity to kill him before I arrive, do it."

* * *

A single kikaichu landed on Shino's outstretched finger. Kakashi feinted boredom as he watched the chuunin communicate with the insect.

"Jiraiya-sama is in an uninhabited district on the opposite side of the city."

"Damn," Kiba cursed.

Kakashi stepped into the wheelhouse and pushed the engine throttle forward.

"Hey, why don't we cut across the city on the rooftops? It'd be a hella lot faster," Kiba yelled into the wind as the boat began to pick up speed.

"You know, Kiba, I didn't think of that. I bet we could even ask one of the hundreds of ninja patrolling the streets if he knows a good shortcut," Kakashi replied in a cheery voice, his one visible eye turned looking like an upside down 'U'.

"Good idea! We cou…HEY!"

Akamaru let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like the canine version of laughter, before going back to enjoying the wind in his face with his tongue hanging out.

Behind his collar, Shino hid a smile from hearing his now sulking teammate finally beaten at his own game. Maybe there was a good side to working under Kakashi, after all.

"Traitors," Kiba grumbled under his breath.

* * *

Jiraiya watched the woman reforming from the swirling cloud of paper in front of him. "Konan, you've improved your jutsu and grown into one hell of a woman."

Jiraiya frowned, and it wasn't simply because of the unwelcome surprise of seeing one of his former students in the garb of a member of Akatsuki. He used to easily get at least a blush out of her with his teasing when she was younger. If nothing else, you'd think he would get some kind of reaction, even if it were merely to let to out an exasperated breath at him still being a pervert after all these years. Instead, Konan merely looked at him with the same emotionless expression she'd been wearing since she first tried to attack.

It wasn't unusual for ninjas to were a mask, both literally and figuratively, in combat, but Jiraiya could sense that this wasn't an act. The Konan he remembered had been a gentle, cheerful girl who could be coaxed into smiling with the smallest show of kindness or affection. The woman in front of him now didn't look like she knew how to smile. What had happened to the sweet child who gave him an origami flower folded out of a bread wrapper all those years ago? There had been such life and hope in that child's eyes despite the desolate squalor of the war torn land she lived in. The dead, forlorn eyes of the woman in front of him couldn't possibly belong to the same soul, could they?

The rebel Rain ninja Jiraiya had used as bait in his trap cried out. "You…you're the Emissary Angel!"

Jiraiya gave an amused half-smile. "You're an angel now, huh? Can't say the title doesn't fit you, Konan." He was disappointed when there was still no change in her expression. "That would make you this 'god's' proxy, wouldn't it?"

The Rain shinobi made a break for it, crying out that Jiraiya was an intruder, as if Konan was unaware of the fact. The sannin and his former-student didn't even break eye contact when she ordered him to leave.

"Who, or what, is Pain?"

"None of your business, sensei," Konan said while she formed wings in a flurry of paper. She propelled herself skyward with a pair of powerful flaps before coming to a hover thirty feet in the air in front of Jiraiya. "God's orders: I'm supposed to kill you!"

Jiraiya tucked himself into a roll, easily evaded the chakra-sharpened paper projectiles Konan had thrown from her wingtips. He was surprised at how wide off the mark her aim was. Was she attempting to drive him into a trap instead of killing him outright? He never got the chance to find out though, because as soon as he came out of his roll, he spotted an opening and attacked, first spraying Konan with oil to stop her from using her paper jutsu and then seizing her with a jutsu that allowed him to extend his long hair to entrap her.

"Mind telling me what happened to the other two? I'm assuming they're not dead," Jiraiya asked. "Well?"

Konan wouldn't look him in the eye, but he could see signs her emotionless façade was starting to crack slightly.

"I figured as much," Jiraiya said, taking her continued silence as confirmation. "So which one of them is this 'Pain'?"

"Why'd you come looking for us after all these years?!" Konan shot back with some heat in her voice.

Jiraiya frowned. "I wasn't looking for you. I was looking for Akatsuki's leader. I was told you were dead. I never imagined you'd end up where you are now."

Konan glared at him. "I bet you wish you had followed Orchimaru's advice and killed us, but you didn't. You saved us. And now it's too late, we follow his ideals."

"No, I don't. What I wish is that I took you back to Konoha with me," Jiraiya answered firmly.

He really had considered bringing them back with him, but Konoha wasn't exactly welcoming foreigners into the village with open arms back then. His old sensei wouldn't have been able to help, either. By the rules laid out in Konoha's constitution, the village council had more say than the Hokage in deciding whether or not to allow a foreigner to join the village, even if the individual in question wasn't a trained shinobi.

While Jiraiya didn't doubt the council would have leapt at the chance to obtain Nagato's rinnegan bloodline, he couldn't guarantee the same welcome for Konan and Yahiko. That had been one of the factors influencing his decision to teach the three kids ninjutsu. If the kids agreed to come back with him, he'd planned to use the other two's knowledge of Konoha ninjutsu as leverage to get the council to accept them into the village. If they chose not to, they'd at least have the skills to survive in Rain and potentially even help their country recover from the war.

Then shortly before he completed their training, he received a letter from Minato detailing the trouble his protégé was having getting the village to grant his fiancé citizenship. Gaining citizenship for a shinobi from an allied hidden village who was marrying someone from Konoha was a lengthy but straightforward affair. There were security considerations that had to be addressed for sure, but the village also stood to gain access to whatever jutsu the foreign shinobi had learned in their home village. As a result, every courtesy was extended to the applicant.

Normally, the fact Kushina was a jonin and from one of Konoha's oldest and most steadfast allies would have been enough to all but ensure her application was approved. The village would gain a large number of jutsu, including a few original ones known only to her, and the odds of her being a spy were so infinitesimally small they were almost laughable.

Unfortunately, there had been a shift in power on the council in Danzou's favor shortly before she applied. The old bastard seemed determined to keep any outsiders from joining the village and was fighting to deny her request. If he could make trouble for someone like Kushina, Konan and Yahiko wouldn't have stood a chance. Danzou might even have tried to have the kids imprisoned for life or assassinated by Root agents to prevent the ninjutsu they had learned from falling into the hands of Konoha's enemies.

With a heavy heart, Jiraiya had decided it was in Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko's best interest for him to leave them in Rain while he returned to Konoha. Seeing what appeared to have become of his former students, he now found himself wishing he had taken them back with him and fought tooth and nail for them to be allowed to join the village.

"Why didn't you, sensei?" Konan asked. A drop of water ran down her cheek, but Jiraiya couldn't tell if it was a tear or a raindrop that had fallen from the towers above.

"I wasn't sure the village council would let the three of you into the village, and I was afraid of what might happen if they didn't. I thought you'd be safe here, that you'd be able to take care of yourselves."

"Well, we weren't," Konan replied in a shaky voice. "You have no idea what we went through after you left, sensei."

"You're right, I don't," Jiraiya said. "What I do know is that whatever happened to you, it doesn't justify what you're involved in. What Akatsuki is doing is wrong."

"That's your opinion, Jiraiya-sensei," Pain announced as he landed on a ledge above them.

Jiraiya looked up at the new arrival. He didn't immediately recognize the man as one of the boys he'd taught, but he still looked vaguely familiar and there was no mistaking those eyes. "So you're Pain, eh, Nagato."

* * *

There was a series of explosions followed by one of the massive towers near the center of the district collapsing.

"Holy crap," Kiba said in an awed voice. "Can you feel that chakra?"

Shino nodded. His kikaichu were highly agitated by the sheer amount of energy in the air. He idly wondered if the feeling of insignificance he was experiencing in the presence of such powerful chakras was what his bugs felt in the presence of the humans that towered above them.

They were only catching glimpses of the battle as Kakashi maneuvered the boat through the canal deeper into the city, but what they could see was enough to make them realize they were witnessing one of the absolutely epic battles in shinobi history.

That was why their new plan was to get as close as possible to the battle without putting themselves in a position where they might get caught in the crossfire. The idea being to meet up with Jiraiya the second the battle was over and get the hell out of Hinanjo as quickly as possible.

Kakashi guided the boat alongside one of the deserted docks that lined the canal. The few people who lived or worked in this section of the city had wisely fled when the battle started. Kiba and Shino jumped onto the dock to secure the boat's mooring lines.

A loud crash rang out from above as something or someone impacted the opposite side of the tower that stood over the dock. Huge chunks of masonry, massive pipes, and steel beams rained down on the three Konoha shinobi. The tower seemed like it would hold for a split second, but gravity won the tug of war between it and the tower's compromised internal structure. The rain of debris became a torrent as the tower collapsed completely. A great cloud of dusk rose into the air.

When the dust cleared, there was nothing left but rubble blocking the canal and the smashed remains of a wooden boat floating on the water.

**End of Chapter 4**

* * *

**Military & Stargate Terms & Abbreviations**

Cheyenne Mountain Complex (CMC): The underground U.S. military facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado that houses NORAD and Stargate Command.

Fort Carson: U.S. Army base located less than a mile from the CMC. Units stationed there include three brigades of the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), the 10th Special Forces Group, and several support units.

Kill House: A purpose built structure used by special operations teams to practice indoor combat tactics. The walls of a kill house are often made out of materials that will stop bullets and prevent ricochets, typically thick wood panels backed with steel, to allow the use of live ammunition in training. Also referred to as an assault house.

P90: A personal defense weapon (basically a kind of submachine gun) made by FN Herstal that fires the 5.7X28mm SS190 round.

Peterson Air Force Base: USAF base in Colorado Springs. Peterson is co-located with the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and shares runways with the civilian airport.

SF: The Air Force equivalent of an Army MP.

Stargate Command (SGC): The military organization that operates the stargate.

SOP: Standard Operating Procedure.

UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

USAF: United States Air Force.

* * *

**Author's Note**

The chapter ended up being a little over 16,000 words long, and I actually decided to move some of the scenes from chapter 4 to chapter 5. With the missing material included, it would have been well over 20,000 words. There's a lot of backstory in Chapter 4 that seems insignificant now, but will be important for the story later on

P.S. I know "Nice Try" probably doesn't translate literally from English to Japanese, but it was funny, so I decided to go with it.

* * *

**Chapter 5 (Make that Chapter 6) Preview **

Sasuke instinctively blinked, some part of his subconscious mind stubbornly insisted he could not possibly have just seen his former teammate standing there. It had to be some other girl who coincidently had pink hair…and the same striking emerald green eyes…who just happened to have guessed his name…then said it in Sakura's voice. Sasuke should have been relieved when he reopened his eyes a millisecond later and did not see Sakura's green eyes staring back at him. Unfortunately, the reason he could not see Sakura's eyes was not that he had mistaken someone else for the volatile kunoichi, but because the fist now hurtling toward his face obscured his view.


	5. Chapter 5: Lost Souls, Part 1

**Shinobi Odyssey**

* * *

"Normal speech."

"_Speaking in a foreign language."_

'Thoughts.'

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto and all the characters from the anime and manga. The Stargate franchise is owned by MGM. Please do not reproduce this story without the permission of the author, huntsvilletiger.

Author's Note: My old job was downsized right before Christmas (nice timing, huh?), but I found a new job after the first of the year. The good news is I'm getting paid more, so I no longer have to live like a starving student, and I'm also doing some serious resume building. The bad news is I'm now limited to doing most of my fan fiction writing on the weekend because I'm working more than double the hours I was in my old job and trying to get up to speed on a bunch of new software and projects while still taking college classes.

So, I'm giving you guys a mini-update (Mini for me, anyway. It's still over 4800 words.) to tide you over while I finish working on the other scenes, including the Sasuke-Sakura showdown I previewed last chapter. The rest of the chapter will be done as soon as I get a free weekend to finish it.

This is an experiment. If I get a lot of obnoxious complaints about me not showing something or how short the update is, I'll make you wait for the complete chapter next time. If you like having shorter chapters I might consider writing shorter ones from now on with the occasional long chapter mixed in.

And because I know someone will ask, yes, all of this stuff happening on Naruto's world will come into play with the events happening back at the SGC with Naruto and Hinata. I'm using a parallel story structure. Think _Lord of the Rings_ with Frodo and Sam's quest to destroy the ring while everyone else is fighting Sauron's armies. (Not that this story is going to follow the plot of _Lord of the Rings._) This is why it sometimes reads like I'm writing two separate stories. Eventually, the two story lines will intersect in a **BIG** way. And yes, there will be times where the focus will be solely on the Naruto and Hinata side of the story

* * *

**Chapter 5: Lost Souls, Part 1**

Shino approached his downed teammate, who Akamaru was circling while letting out occasional whines of distress. "Are you injured?"

Kiba glared up at Shino for a moment before growling through teeth gritted in pain. "Someone just dropped a building on my damn foot! OF COURSE I'M INJURIED!!"

A hand clamped down over Kiba's mouth from behind. "Yell like that again, and your foot will be the least of our problems," Kakashi warned. The jonin's eye darted in the direction of the battle they could still hear being waged a short distance away and then scanned the banks of the canal searching for anyone who may have spotted them. Fortunately, no one seemed to have heard the outburst.

Seeing Kiba's chagrined expression after being reminded of their situation, Kakashi removed his hand from the teenager's mouth.

He glanced down at Kiba's trapped right foot. The appendage was firmly wedged between two large slabs of steel reinforced concrete from the collapsed tower. The only good news was the debris trapped between the two slabs had created a narrow crevice, which prevented Kiba's foot from being completely crushed. At least they wouldn't have to do a field amputation.

After several failed attempts to pull Kiba free or lift the top slab with Shino's help, Kakashi tried to think if any of the thousand plus jutsu he knew might be able to do the job. He quickly nixed most of the techniques in his arsenal as being either too likely to cause further injury to Kiba or too apt to attract unwanted attention. He briefly considered using a variation of 'Doton: Shinjuu Zanshu no Jutsu,' but he wasn't sure the jutsu would work with concrete. The steel rebar in the slabs ruled out even an attempt. He definitely needed to work on developing a ninjutsu for similar situations after they returned to Konoha.

In the meantime, he settled on a more primitive solution. "Shino, find something sturdy we can use as a lever." While the chuunin searched, Kakashi rolled a large stone from the fallen masonary over to the slabs trapping Kiba to serve as a fulcrum. Shino returned a few seconds later with a length of three-inch diameter steel pipe.

"Perfect," Kakashi said, as he wedged one end of the pipe into the space separating the two concrete slabs with the stone acting as a pivot point three feet from the edge of the top most slab. "Kiba, it's going to take both Shino and me to lift this. You're going to have to pull yourself out from under the slab on your own."

"Akamaru can help. Here, boy." Kiba grabbed onto the massive dog's collar. "I'm ready when you are."

"Okay. On three," Kakashi responded. He and Shino anchored their feet to the ground with chakra and gripped the pipe. "One. Two. Three. Lift!"

The pair strained to hold the weight of the reinforced concrete slab up as Akamaru dragged his master free. As soon as Kiba was clear, they carefully lowered the slab back down to avoid creating too much noise.

Kakashi knelt down and began a simple diagnostic jutsu on the young Inuzuka's foot to determine the extent of his injuries. He silently said his thanks that his old genin squad teammate, Rin, had taken the time to show him some elementary medical techniques shortly before her death. The knowledge had proven to be a lifesaver for himself and his fellow shinobi a hundred times over in the years that followed.

He often wondered about the kunoichi's out of the blue decision to give him lessons in medical jutsu. At the time, he remembered getting the odd feeling Rin didn't expect to be around for much longer and wanted to make sure he could look after himself when she was gone. If that was truly the case, her decision was one of uncanny prescience.

Kakashi couldn't see how she could have predicted her own demise, though. Her death was the result of a random peacetime accident. She, along with several other medical ninjas, had responded to a cave-in at a coalmine a short distance from Konoha. As the senior shinobi present, Rin elected herself for the dangerous job of making a final sweep of the tunnels to ensure they hadn't missed anyone while the other medical ninjas tended to the injured miners. A massive explosion occurred, and the rest of the mine collapsed, killing Rin. The investigation that followed the accident determined that a pocket of natural gas, which in its unrefined form is colorless and odorless, was released by the initial cave-in and ignited by either static electricity or a spark from a damaged electric light.

When Kakashi returned from the solo mission he had been on and learned of Rin's death, he'd been convinced there was more to the incident that the investigation indicated. Too many details of the official report didn't make sense. Rin had been taught the Kage Bushin no Jutsu by their sensei's wife. Why didn't she send a shadow clone instead of venturing alone into the unstable mine tunnels? Uzumaki Kushina had created the technique specifically for scouting hazardous areas, after all. For that matter, why'd she feel the need to make another sweep of the mine in the first place? She should have been able to tell if anyone was still trapped inside from the status board at the mine entrance the miners used to keep track of who was down in the mine in case of just such an accident.

Kakashi frowned. 'Then again, the Third could have been right when he ordered me to stop investigating on my own what happened. Maybe I really was trying to see an "underneath-the-underneath" that wasn't there.'

After Obito died, his relationship with Rin had become increasingly strained. He couldn't reconcile the promise he made to protect the girl his best friend loved with the fact he was starting to fall for her. So for years, he pretended he didn't know how Rin felt about him and that he didn't feel the exact same way about her. He'd figured eventually she'd move on, fall in love with someone else, get married, and have the big family she always wanted.

Sure, watching the woman he loved with someone else would be difficult, but he'd finally be able to protect Rin the way he'd promise Obito with a guilt-free conscience. Plus, he'd get to play the role of the cool uncle to her kids and spoil them rotten. The plan was nearly perfect. Too bad the universe abhors perfect plans almost as much as it does a vacuum.

Just as it seemed the medical kunoichi was getting close to giving up on him, Kakashi slipped up. He stupidly confessed his love for Rin while trying to gently let down a member of his ANBU squad who'd developed a crush on him. How was he supposed to know Rin could hear the entire conversation from the next room through an air vent?

She confronted him about it while he was packing for his mission a couple of nights before her death. He tried to claim he didn't love her and had just said that to avoid hurting Yuugao's feelings.

It was a perfectly believable lie in Kakashi's opinion. Uzuki Yuugao was not only a trained assassin but also had an affection, which bordered on unhealthy obsession, for all things sharp and pointy. Any man with a shred of common sense would be wary of crossing the woman. All Rin had to do was ask the last drunken moron at Ryusaki's who'd made the mistake of trying to cop a feel. The man was easy to find. He was six foot seven inches tall and answered to the nickname Stubby.

Believable or not, Rin didn't buy the excuse for a second. She yelled that he was full of shit, punched him in the face hard enough to make his trademark mask useful for something other than a charming fashion statement while the bruises healed, and then ran out of his apartment in tears.

When Kakashi got over the shock of Rin actually hitting him, he went looking for her but was unable to find her. After reluctantly concluding she probably needed some time to calm down, he decided to wait until after he returned from his mission to try to talk to her again.

He did a lot of soul searching during the long journey to Marsh Country to and from. Deep down, Kakashi knew his actions, or rather his refusal to act, had hurt Rin deeply. By the time he reached the gates of Konoha again, he'd resolved to apologize and explain his feelings to Rin.

But by then it was too late. He'd knew it the instant the Third greeted him at the gate wearing the same face he'd worn the day Kakashi woke up in the hospital and was told his sensei had perished saving the village.

Kakashi blamed himself. He couldn't discount the possibility that the pain he'd caused had distracted her at a crucial moment. More than most, he knew how unforgiving their chosen profession could be. The smallest mistake or lack of focus often meant the difference between life and death.

Kiba looked up, surprised to see the green glow of a medical jutsu coming from Kakashi's hands and worried by the expression on what little he could see of the distracted jonin's face. "Give it to me straight…it's bad isn't it?" He waited with bated breath for the answer, having already convinced himself that every bone in his foot had been pulverized and he'd never walk again.

Kakashi scowled annoyed by his own lack of focus. He redirected his concentration on interpreting what the jutsu was telling him. Two of the metatarsals, the long bones in the foot itself, were broken. The two bones had nice clean breaks with no fragmentation and would be relatively simple to heal. Kiba also had a number of fractures of the tarsus, the cluster of bones that made up the ankle joint, which were an entirely different story.

If they were back in Konoha or had a medical ninja with them, Kiba's injuries wouldn't be a problem, but the bones there were too small and tightly clustered and there were too many bone fragments for Kakashi's limited knowledge of medical jutsu. The first rule of medical ninjutsu Rin had beat into his head was to do no harm. If he tried to heal the breaks, he might accidentally fuse together something that wasn't supposed to be or damage the nerves or blood vessels potentially crippling Kiba or making amputation necessary.

Since there was no danger to Kiba's life and little risk of permanent disability, the best course of action was simply to immobilize the ankle and foot until they could reach someone with more medical expertise.

Unfortunately, Kiba's foot and ankle were already starting to swell. They'd have to get his sandal off before it started cutting off circulation. There was only one surefire way to accomplish the task without moving the injured ankle. Kakashi ended the diagnostic jutsu and whipped out a kunai. "We're going to have to cut it off."

Kiba's eyes locked onto the kunai. He could tell it was one of Kakashi's older ones. The cutting edge of the blade was jagged and nicked from heavy use but still serviceable. The chuunin's jaw dropped. All the color drained out of his face, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fainted.

Shino sighed at his teammate's unexpected case of hypochondria and Kakashi's complete lack of bedside manner. "Perhaps you should have specified that by 'it,' you were referring to his footwear and not his foot."

Kakashi shrugged. "At least he'll be quieter this way." The jonin nodded his head in the direction of a small wooden structure that had miraculously survived the destruction by virtue of being built underneath the overhang of the main platform above. "Help me move him inside that shack. Hopefully we'll be able to find something inside to make a splint out of."

After picking the lock, they discovered the shack was actually a combination of workshop and storage shed. A workbench and tools hung on the wall dominated the front room, while the backroom of the structured was filled with coils of rope, boxes of machine parts, lumber, and the various sundry items necessary to maintain and operate a marina and the watercraft it serviced. They laid Kiba down in the backroom behind a large crate where he'd be concealed for view. Kakashi cut off the teen's right sandal. He decided to conserve his chakra, he had a feeling he was going to need it, by waiting to let whoever they found to heal Kiba's ankle take care of the broken bones in his foot as well. Shino pulled out a smelling salt capsule and crushed it under Kiba's nose.

"Damn, that stuff is strong," Kiba groaned as he came to. He waved his hand in front of his face trying to clear the air of the pungent ammonia scent. "I think it burned off my nose hair."

Shino shook his head. It was the same thing Kiba always said when Hinata fainted and they used the smelling salts to wake her. The quiet kunoichi had gotten much better about fainting, but considering what happened when she ran into Naruto for the first time after his return to the village, Shino had decided to add the salts to his normal supplies for their previous mission with Team Kakashi. He never dreamed he'd have to use them on his other teammate.

Kiba looked relieved, if somewhat embarrassed, when he noticed his foot was still attached and saw the sandal Kakashi had sliced off laying a short distance away. He gave a silent nod of thanks to the jonin and his teammate for not saying anything about his fainting spell but missed the sly smile hidden behind the collar of the latter's coat. The bug user planned to bring up the incident later, preferably when he could retell the story in front of Kiba's family, the rest of Team 8, and all their friends for maximum effect. Shino still owed his teammate for switching his spray-on deodorant with a can of bug repellant the week before. Oh yes, revenge was a dish best served cold…and publicly.

Kakashi got the two chuunin and one ninja dog's attention. "Okay, I want you three to stay here. If you don't hear from me within a half an hour, start making your way back to Konoha on your own." Kiba started to object, but Kakashi cut him off. "That's an order. If neither Jiraiya-sama nor I survive, somebody still needs to report back to the Hokage what's happened."

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a pair of two-way radios, which he thankfully hadn't had time to unpack after their last mission. He handed one of the radios to Shino. "Keep that on. I'll be maintaining radio silence to avoid detection, but if I learn something important or need to give you a warning to run, I will contact you. If you do have to escape without me, stay out of sight and steal the first boat you come across. Right now their security is in shambles due to the battle, but it won't take their shinobi long to regroup. When they do, they will probably clamp down hard on travel. If you aren't across the border before that happens you'll be trapped here."

Kakashi got up to leave. "Hopefully, I'll be back shortly." He tilted his head slightly and smiled beneath his mask in an attempt to lighten the heavy mood of the two chuunin. "Try not to let any more buildings fall on you until I get back." Kakashi vanished in a swirl of leaves.

Kiba watched Shino finish splinting his injured ankle and foot. The young Inuzuka grinned at his still crouching best friend and sometimes rival. "So, we're going to wait, what…three more minutes before going after the bastard?"

"Five," Shino answered while making a final inspection of his handy work. "Kakashi is no doubt adept at detecting when he is being followed."

* * *

Jiraiya sank into the depths of the lake. He was going to lose consciousness, probably for the last time, within the next minute or so from shock, blood loss, oxygen deprivation, or some combination of the three. Yet, he couldn't wipe the satisfied smile off his face. His death would be a shinobi's death. He'd held on to the bitter end and hopefully given his protégé the key to defeating Pain. He just hoped that he'd be able to watch the teen he loved like a grandson change the world he was leaving behind from wherever he ended up in the next. 'Make me proud, Naruto.'

Through his fading vision, he saw an angelic being descending toward him. A light from above silhouetted her, masking her features but highlighting her lithe form. He reached out to her with his remaining arm to welcome his fate. The heavenly creature responded in kind. Their fingers intertwined, and she gently pulled him toward her.

When the angel's hand tenderly caressed his cheek out of sympathy for the ordeal he'd just endured, Jiraiya's smile took on a more perverted hue. 'I wonder if the angels have their own hot springs in heaven?' He rested his hand on the small of her back and savored the feeling of silky smooth skin where the angel's top had ridden up. His hand ventured downward across the waistband of her pants and over the curve of her firm buttocks. He squeezed. 'Niiice!'

The angel's whole body went ridged. The sannin's mind, befogged by lack of oxygen and demented from decades of perversion, wrongly attributed the reaction to orgasmic bliss. 'Hehe, Jiraiya, you dog, you,' He chuckled to himself. 'Even as a spirit, you've still got…"

**SLAP!**

* * *

Kakashi swiftly ran along the top of one of the large sewer pipes suspended between the columns supporting the streets and buildings above. The hundreds of massive columns combined with the pipes, cables, and steel supports snaking every-which-way gave the dark and damp underside of the city all the ambience of a concrete and steel Forest of Death.

'The dangers are a bit different, though,' Kakashi wryly thought as he deftly leapt over a rusted through patch in the top of the pipe to avoid taking an unplanned, not to mention smelly, dip. Considering how deep inside enemy territory he was, he would have preferred stealth to speed, but based on what he'd seen a few minutes ago, Jiraiya couldn't wait.

During a lull in the fighting, Kakashi had briefly returned to the main level and scaled one of the taller buildings in the area to get a fix on the sannin's location. There were no signs of the combatants, and the city was eerily still. What he did see was evidence of a kage-level battle of epic proportions. Scores of buildings had been reduced to rubble, sections of the platforms under them had collapsed into the lake, and heavy pieces of industrial machinery weighing tons each had been torn from their mounts.

The only sounds to be heard had been the wind blowing between the towers and a strange rhythmic noise not unlike bullfrogs singing coming from somewhere deep inside the maze of metal and concrete pipes running under the city. Then the odd noise stopped.

The silence lasted only a couple of minutes before the side of one of the larger factories almost a mile away from his lookout spot exploded. Kakashi caught sight of Jiraiya being forcibly ejected from the industrial labyrinth inside. The masked jonin paled when he counted six shinobi wearing Akatsuki cloaks emerge from the newly created hole to continue fighting the now obviously injured sannin.

Konoha had accurate intelligence indicating that, including Orchimaru, there had never been more than ten main members of Akatsuki. The Leaf and Sand had already taken out three Akatsuki, and Orchimaru parted company with the organization a decade earlier. There should only be six or seven Akatsuki left, and none of the six he'd spotted appeared to be Kisame or Itachi, both of whom Kakashi knew to still be alive. Had Akatsuki somehow replenished their ranks already? Now that was a scary thought, especially if the new recruits were even close to the same level as their predecessors.

Kakashi shook his head. No, there weren't enough S-ranked missing nins out there for so many to have joined Akatsuki in such a short amount of time without someone noticing.

That was how Konoha had first learned of Akatsuki's existence, after all. There had been more than a few attempts perpetrated either by missing-nins or unaligned ninja clans to trick the shinobi nations into fighting one another. After one such incident nearly lead to an all out war between Kumo and Iwa, the villages started quietly sharing intel on threats to their mutual security.

In fact, Jiraiya was one of the chief facilitators of the flow of intelligence between the villages. While no one doubted where the white-haired sannin's loyalties lay, his reputation as a man of his word, which was something of a rarity in the cutthroat world of the shinobi, was enough for him to be trusted by all the hidden villages on matters that did not directly conflict with either his sense of ethics or allegiance to Konoha.

When the shadowy organization first began recruiting powerful missing-nins, the news didn't take long to reach the sannin's ear. As of a couple days ago when Jiraiya had last reported to the Hokage, there had been no such rumblings coming from the intelligence agencies of any village.

The only other likely explanations Kakashi could come up with for the six shinobi were some kind of high-order clone jutsu or puppets, although neither really fit what he'd seen from the tower. Jiraiya's opponents seemed far too powerful to be mere clones, and they'd moved far outside the range a puppeteer, even one as skillful as the now dead Sasori of the Red Sands, could control a puppet.

That only left some unknown sort of jutsu, which, given all the imaginative ways shinobi had found to manipulate chakra over the years, could mean just about anything.

Kakashi slowed down when he saw that he was finally nearing the location where he'd last seen Jiraiya and the six enemy shinobi. Up ahead, the sewer pipe curved around the perimeter of a closely packed cluster of columns supporting some particularly heavy structure above. Each of the reinforced concrete columns was larger in diameter than the largest Fire Country oak Kakashi had ever seen. A reinforced-concrete buttress rising from the lake bottom encircled the cluster, forming a narrow ledge at the waterline. If the sunlight coming from the far side of the cluster was any indication, the battle had collapsed part of the city into the lake. The sounds of fighting had worryingly ceased again. Was he too late and the battle was over, or were Jiraiya and the Akatsuki merely stalking each other again?

Kakashi came to a complete stop when movement beneath the water's surface caught his eye. The outlines of two people could be seen swimming toward the ledge. Or rather the smaller one of the pair was doing a sidestroke while dragging her unmoving companion. As they drew closer to the surface, Kakashi could make out a long mane of white hair trailing behind them. He flattened himself against the top of the pipe and suppressed his chakra.

As he watched, a woman wearing a Rain-nin rebreather mask pulled herself out of the water and onto the ledge while keeping a firm grip on the man she had been towing. It was difficult to tell with the mask concealing her face, but she appeared to be in her twenties or thirties. Her clothing was an odd match to her choice of gear. She was dressed in a pair of civilian style brown pants and a dark red shirt with a brown bag slung across her shoulder rather than the quick drying tan jumpsuit most Rain-nins who specialized in aquatic infiltration tended to wear.

She started pulling Jiraiya out of the water with surprising ease given the difference in their sizes. A second rebreather was strapped to Jiraiya's face. From what Kakashi could see of the sannin's injuries, he was frankly amazed Jiraiya still had need for the device. The sannin's left arm was severed between the elbow and shoulder, his right shoulder appeared to have been run clean through by something, his back was a bloody mess with a number of obvious wounds, and he looked as if he'd suffered a beating worse than the time Tsunade caught him peeking at her in the hot springs.

Having decided he needed to act before any of the kunoichi's friends showed up, Kakashi pulled a kunai from his holster and jumped down to the ledge. He landed directly behind the Rain kunoichi with nary a sound. She was on her knees and too focused on pulling Jiraiya the rest of the way out of the water to detect his approach. Or so he thought.

Just as he was about to drive his kunai into the back of her skull, she spun around and drew her own kunai in one lightening quick, fluid motion. Simultaneously, they tried to grab the wrist of their opponent's weapon-bearing arm.

Kakashi was surprised by the kunoichi's speed and the way her taijutsu mirrored his own, but his sharingan eye gave him an edge in reaction time the woman couldn't hope to counter.

He sidestepped to his left and avoided her attempt to gain control of his weapon. He then pivoted on his right foot so he was slightly behind and to the side of the still kneeling kunoichi, shifting his kunai to his left hand with practiced ease as he moved. He grabbed her wrist with his now free right hand and pressed his thigh against the back of her arm, attempting to lock her elbow joint in place and gain control of the limb.

His sharingan saw she was about to pitch forward a split second before it happened, but what he couldn't see was her feet, which he was standing directly over. When she fell forward, she started rolling onto her back while sweeping his feet out from under him with her left leg and hooking her right behind his knee.

Kakashi stumbled trying to regain his balance, but the kunoichi grabbed onto the arm he'd been attempting to restrain her with and pulled him down with her. She aimed her kunai at his heart, all but guaranteeing he'd impale himself on the blade.

As they tumbled from the shadows into the light, Kakashi saw the kunoichi's strangely familiar brown eyes through the rebreather mask's goggles. They widened, not from fear, but recognition when she got her first clear look at her attacker. She yanked her weapon out of Kakashi's path. In return, he stopped mere inches shy of ramming his own kunai into the side of her neck.

"Drop the kunai and take it off. Take off the mask," Kakashi ordered. Most of the people who knew him would have been shocked at the tremble in the voice of normally glacially cool jonin. But even Sharingan Kakashi could be rattled when brought face-to-face with an apparition.

The woman let the kunai slip from her hand. Shakily, she reached up and loosened first one then the other strap securing the rebreather firmly in place.

Too impatient to wait for her to finish on her own, Kakashi released the last two straps himself. Short chestnut brown hair cascaded down around her face as he pulled the mask away. Kakashi felt like the breath had been knocked out of him as the familiar features of a face he hadn't seen in over a decade were revealed. He reached out and gently touched her cheek, as if to reassure himself that she was real and not some figment of his imagination.

"Rin?"

* * *

**End of Chapter 5**


End file.
